o
i
CULTURE dnd NATURAL RESOURCES
flflqL
STARKER LECTURES
LIs,
Culture
oatural resources
Compiled by
Bo Shelby & Sandie Arbogast
I
COLLE(;I OF FORESTRY
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
CORVALLIS, ORE(;ON
IICNOWLED6EMENTS
WE APPRECIATE THE DEDICATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT
of Dean George Brown, College of Forestry administrators,
faculty, students, and friends who support the Starker Lectures.
Manuscripts were edited by Roseanna Mattingly, Beaverton,
Oregon. Design and production were provided by Sandie Arbogast,
Forest Resources, College of Forestry. The Starker Lectures are made
possible by gifts from the Starker Partners in memory of T.J. and
Bruce Starker.
Credits Archival clip art: 1 & 71; Starker family collection: 4 &
6; Parody of shmoo with apologies to Al Capp: 23; John Porter Ratzloff
Photography: 24; OSU, Forestry Media Center: 33 & 72; Natural
history clip art: 33 & 44; Simpson Lumber, Simpson Camp 5: 45;
Brian MacCleery: 46; Historic Poems & Ballads, Mollie Pitcher at The
Battle of Monmouth: 92.
ACIIMOWLEDEMENTS
FOAEWOFIEI
.2
...............................................
UEUICATION ............................................. 6
\IARC REISNER ............................... 8
We Killed Ilie Fronhiei, Moffi Le1's Our Ilie
MLIh: Susfflnbilitt In te Ameiicn West
\\1NONA L\1)UKF ......................... 24
A Societ Dsed On Conues
Cannot De SusIfflned: Nifilve Peoples nd
tile Enviionmentffl Ciisis
DAVID PEARSON ...........................
Culuiffl Cldshes nd tile Fuuie Of
Tropical 11dm
Foiest Conselvdhon
DOUG MACCLEERY ..................... 46
Wt In tIle World Kdve We Oone To Our
Forests: A 8iief Overvieffi On tIle
Condition dnd Trends Of U.S. Foiests
MARGARET SHANNON ............... 72
Forest Cdie: II Feminist Tileorli Of
Forest Mdndement
THERE IS A STRONG LINK
between culture and natural
cultures to save both the forests and
resources. Cultures are shaped by the
resource context in which they occur, but
DOUG MACCLEERY is the Assistant
Director of Timber Management for Forest
they in turn form the resources around
them into their own image. We hope to
capture this interaction and tension with
Inventory and Planning with the U.S.
the theme of this year's Starker Lectures,
"Culture and Natural Resources." Our
speakers represent diverse views of both
cultures and resources.
MARC REISNER is a writer, lecturer,
and conservationist. He contends that
our use of resources in the American
West has traditionally fallen short of
sustainability; moving toward that ideal
will require giving up some cherished
myths of the frontier.
WINONA LADUKE is the Executive
Director of the White Earth Land Project
and a member of the Anishinaabe Tribe
of White Earth, Minnesota. Her
presentation considers a number of
resource issues in light of the concept of
"mino bimaatisiiwin," which defines the
reciprocal relationship of indigenous
peoples with the land.
DR. DAVID PEARSON is Research
Professor of Zoology at Arizona State
University. His presentation highlights
the plight of tropical rain forests and
the need for cooperation among
cultures they support.
Forest Service in Washington, D.C. He uses
a historical perspective to discuss trends in
land allocations and uses since the settling
of the United States by Europeans.
DR. MARGARET SHANNON is Corkery
Professor of Forest Policy and Law at the
University of Washington. She offers a
feminist's insight into the ways in which
the views of women can affect resource
management and policy.
This year's Starker Lecture
Committee decided to encourage greater
diversity in the formats for the write-
ups presented here. Accordingly, the
presentations by Marc Reisner and
Margaret Shannon are derived from
transcripts of the presentations they
gave in their public lectures, resulting in
a more conversational style. In contrast,
Winona Laduke, Doug MacCleery, and
David Pearson chose to convey the
essence of their public presentations in
a more condensed format.
We hope you enjoy this diversity.
Bo Shelfri,
Professor, Forest Resources
T.J.
fr
Bruce Stdrliel
known as T.J.), was born in Kansas and
DRUCE STARKER studied for a forestry
degree from O.S.C. in 1940 and an M.S.
in Forestry in 1941. After service with the
(hometown of Aldo Leopold). He moved with
(uast Guard, Bruce joined his father in
his family to Portland in 1907. He began
acquiring and managing Oregon forest land,
working in and studying forestry, graduating
alwas with an eye for sound reforestation,
management and conservation for multiple
H URMON JAMES STARKER (universally
Tlived his youth in Burlington, Iowa
in the first class of foresters at Oregon
Agricultural College in 1910. He then studied
two years for an M.S. degree in Forestry at the
benefits and values. He worked with
University of Michigan and returned to
a \\ II as with private industry, to advance
Oregon to work for the U.S. Forest Service.
Subsequent employment with the forest
products industry and a variety of summer
jobs while he was teaching forestry at
O.A.C./O.S.C. gave T.J. broad and thorough
university, state, and federal forestry agencies,
The sound, piogressive foresr dnd
communilij spiiit of T.J. nd Biuce Stdrker
experience in all aspects of forestry. T.J.
began purchasing second-growth Douglas-fir
forest land in 1936, the beginnings of the
current Starker Forests. Through his work
experiences, teaching forest management and
extensive civic involvement, T. J. had a major
influence on sound forestry and community
development in Oregon.
COHhDU8
reforestation, management and equitable
taxation to encourage private forest
management. Bruce continued the family
tradition of active community service in many
ways, mci udi ng civic activities, regional
forestry work, and contributing to writing the
Oregon Forest Practices Act.
Forestry in Starker Forests has changed
with advances in knowledge, technology and
public environment, but the constant value of
tending the land is unchanged.
- -
I'VE COME ALL
way up here from
We KiIIe The Froohei,
No
Let's Dui The
MIti: SusIinhiIit
In
ornia to run down the
fi'oiiuci ethic and talk about sus-
tainabilitywhich may strike
some of you as ironic, since
California was in its time probably
the foremost example of a frontier
mentality. Oregon was settled by
The Ameiicdn West
The pidnot is not
B
MARC REISNER,
writer, lecturer,
and author of Cadillac Desert and
Game Wars
shmoo. irs hecomin
matter of life oi death for the ldnet
thffl ue fiuie out ho
to st
efflth
houi to susIiri the liiet that
mIies us so.
Presbyterians. California was set-
tled by prospectors. And now
California is a monument to
wretched excesscertainly not
to sustainability. Los Angeles is
going to run out of air even
before it runs out of water. But,
as Yogi Berra said, "You can
observe a lot, just by watchin."
California is where I live, and,
even if what I experience everyday has nothing to do with sustainability, the concept is always
on my mind.
Mürc Reisni
Ijust turned 44 a few days ago and, so
I'm sort of an old geezer now, I guessat least
my nieces think so. But, in my lifetime, which
kind of moderation or sustainability that we
have to live with.. .at least if you want to be
old. The moral, I guess, is that we're used to
we'll call it half a lifetimealthough I don't
sustainability on a personal level. But the idea
know that many 88 years oldsthe world population has almost doubled from about 3 billion when I was born to almost 6 billion. It's
of planetary sustainability is really a new,
going to be 6 billion by the end of this
decade. So there, in a nutshell, is the real sustainability problem. We have too many people
on the planet. We can't sustain life on earth
with continued human population growth at
this rate. I happen to believe that we need
negative population growth. I know I just
offended some of you who may be Catholics
or Evangelical Christians out there. But I also
know that I'm going to offend a lot of people
here today, so I might as well start with you.
It's our choice between mass suicide and sus-
tainabilitythat's what the population issue
is. Therethat's the pessimistic part of my
speech. Now I'm going to turn into a little bit
of an optimist.
The concept of sustainability is nothing new. It's as old as time and it's something
that we all have to practice all the time. It's
something that rich and poor have to live with
on a personal level.
People who settled the Plains had to
worry about not eating the seed corn when
they got desperately hungry because that was
what they were going to live on the following
year. That's one form of sustainability. If you
were a Pharaoh in Egypt or mogul in India,
you had to worry about sustaining 300 concubinesand your sex drive too, which is anoth-
er form of sustainability. Personal moderationwhich we all practice preferably in moderation, as Mark Twain saidthat's another
bizarre, alien concept to most of us. We can't
seem to fathom fully the destructive energy of
six billion humans scrambling for wealth.
When I was a little kid I don't remem-
ber anybody talking about sustainability
questioning whether the human race could
survive on this planet. I remember in 1970
when I got into the environmental business
there was some talk about the fisheries perhaps collapsing world-wide, but the idea of
the forests being logged at such a rate that
they might all vanishthe rainforests and all
of this kind of stuffof agriculture eroding so
much top soil that someday we might have
nothing to eatthis was all completely
beyond the horizon. And now, just in the last
ten or 15 years, these issues have become THE
environmental issues of our time. And
because we haven't begun to solve them, I
think they are going to remain the environmental issues of our time for a long time to
come. What you really ought to do after I get
done with you here is go up to Portland and
hear Jean-Jacques Cousteau's son, Michelle
give a talk. He says that worrying about clean
air, clean water, sewage treatment, and all
these things that the environmentalists usually
worry about is sort of like being the cleanup
crew after a hurricane has gone through.
Sustainabilityit's something we're going to
have to tackle, and we don't know how.
I want to talk, I guess, about three
places I knowat least I know something
about them and the sustainability issues they
We
iIIe
The Frollri8f, Noul Lers
BllF
The
raise. Now, what usually happens when human
beings impose themselves on a landscape is that
webecause we're so smart, you know, we're so
devilishly inventive and smartwe figure out
how to take a raw resource and make some-
th: SustaindbiIiR n the flmericfifl West
tunity to take a lot of water out of the river.
This wasn't possible before the reservoirs were
there. So the other form of riches that we created with that river was irrigated agriculture.
thing magnificent out of it. Something richer in
And there are millions of acres in Idaho,
Washington, and Oregon that are irrigated
a very different sense than what used to be
now and produce a lot of wealth with water
there. But we sacrifice something in the
that used to flow down the river.
process, and usually what we sacrifice is some-
The poverty that we created, on the
other hand, was a loss of the salmon. And I
thing that could have been sustainable and
what we create is something that often isn't sustainable. So I'm going to give you three exam-
ples going from bad to worse, of this kind of
phenomenon.
don't have to tell you what a huge issue that is
up here. Anywhere from a million to a million
and a half returning spawners are left, so the
run has been decimatedI think that is the
only word you can usereduced by about
COLUMBIA RIVER
90%, at least. And going downhill all the time.
I'm going to start close to home with
the Columbia River. The Columbia used to be
the premiere salmon river in the world, supporting a run of maybe 15, maybe as many as
28 million spawning fish that came back up
the river every year, even after fishing had
gone on for some time. Some of these were
the biggest salmon in the world. The 'ijune
There are something like a hundred separate
salmon runs in the watershed, and many of
hogs" weighed 80 lbs, 100 lbsthey were
Now there's always a value judgement
involved in these kinds of equations. We started off thinking we need power, we need irri-
super fish.
Now, in 1928,I think it was '28;
maybe it was '24the first dam was built on the
Columbia River. And since that time about 36
more big dams have been built on that river
and its main tributaries. And out of this dam
construction came two types of riches. One, of
course, was hydropowersomething like 25
thousand megawatts of hydropower. It is the
most intensively developed big river for
them are either endangered or threatened
species, or strong candidates to join the list.
Enormous sacrifices are going to be asked of
the power companies, the irrigators, and perhaps the logging industry to keep this vanishing resource from disappearing altogether.
gated land, there're plenty of fish so let's not
worry about them. And before we know it
we're almost out of fish there - and we find
that we're running out of fish everywhere.
Then we decide the fish are so valuable, sentimentally and economically even religiously,
in a sensethat we want the runs restored.
Meanwhile, we have a whole society,
hydropower in the world. And I think it produces more than any other river except maybe
whole industries, and lots of jobs that are
the Paraña in South America.
The dams also gave people the oppor-
Getting the fish back is going to be very, very
based on the things that took the fish away.
difficult. But it's possible and I think it is
Mfirc
probably going to happen, and it may not
even involve all that much sacrifice on everyone's part.
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY
Now, in California, we have a similar
situation going on where we diverted about
70-75% of the water that used to go into San
Francisco Bay every yearthe spring and summer runoff from all the Sierra Nevada rivers.
And we decided it made better sense to put
that water in the San Joaquin Valley to irrigate
agricultural crops. As a result, the San Joaquin
Valley is now the richest agricultural region
on earth, growing anywhere from 150 to 160
different kinds of crops. The value of agriculture in California has been estimated at about
17 billion dollars, which is more than the GNP
of some African countries. And about half of
that comes out of the San Joaquin Valley.
There's also a lot hydropower development
on those rivers, but the main impact there was
caused by taking out an incredible amount of
water that used to be in the rivers. So, there
we have lost a big salmon fishery, though it
wasn't as big as what used to exist on the
Columbia. But, we've also lost the best waterfowl habitat that ever existed on earth, except
in Southern Louisiana. It was mainly in the
Sacramento Valley, but also in the San
Joaquin. Tulare Lake used to be the sump
where the four rivers in the southern Sierra
Nevadathe King, Kaweah, Tulley, and
Kernwould end up. There was no outlet to
the sea there, so they just pooled. And during
years of extraordinary run-off, Tulare Lake was
the biggest lake west of the Mississippi River
bigger than Tahoe. But it was shallow, so it was
explosively productive habitat for water fowl.
Risner
There used to be thousands of people who
made their living down there hunting waterfowl for the markets in Los Angeles and San
Francisco. Wild ducks used to be cheaper than
domesticated chickens, as recently as 1905.
Now, that's entirely gone, there's not a vestige
of Tulare Lake left. Ninety-eight percent of the
wetlands are gone in the San Joaquin, and 94%
in the Sacramento Valley. There, we lost not
just a big salmon fishery, but a terrific amount
of habitat that supported at one time probably
80 million over-wintering ducks and geese. We
have about two million, three million left.
What makes this situation a lot worse
than the Columbia crisis is the alternative economy, the manmade economy that supplanted
the natural economy, is not seemingly sustain-
able. A lot of that land that got irrigated, it
turns out, is highly alkaline, poisoned with salts
and with seleniumwhich is a natural salt but a
very toxic one. On top of that, even with all that
water being taken out of the rivers and brought
down there in canals and aqueducts, the
demand for water just grew and grew. Now, Bo
was mentioning some of these agricultural
groups I talk to down there. I always love to
compare them to cocaine addictswhich of
course they really like to hear. But it's true: they
can never have enough water. The only answer
to more water is still more water. That seems to
be a suicidal course that's being taken down
there. Despite all the water being diverted out
of the rivers, about 40% of all the water used in
California is ground water. So, you have an
aquifer under the San Joaquin Valley that in
normal years is being depleted at a rate of
about 700 billion gallons a year. During the
drought that we've all been experiencing for
yearswe have for about six years in
We KiIIe Te Fionhiei, Noui Lers 8urq Tlie Mit: Sust iIitii I
NiB
mericdn West
Californiathe overdraft has gone as high as
lived there all of his life and he's, as any
six million acre feet a year, which is two trillion
gallons of water.
undercover agent is, he's a crazy personyou
Now these numbers, you know, with
big government and a mass society.. million,
trillion, billion don't mean anvth ing anymore.
have to be crazy in that business. He infiltrates
rings of poachers,ivory, alligator, and croco-
dile poachersall over the world. Bad people;
it's work that makes you crazier than you
But, somebody once explained to me what a billion dollars is. If you took two dollar bills and
already are. But, nothing has driven Dave Hall
taped them end-to-end and ran them all the
Louisiana Delta which he grew up in. Now
this, I think, can accurately be described as
way around the earth and then ran them all the
way around again and then ran them all the way
around again, and then tied a big bow tie thirty
miles into space, you'd have a billion dollars.
And we're talking about trillions of gallons of
water that are being overdrafted, pumped up
beyond the rate of natural replenishment. And
one relatively small value. Between the over-
draft and the contamination of the soilwith
with salts, with boronit is now
estimated that at least a million acres of some
of the most productive agricultural land in the
world is doomed. It will not be rescued. The
crazier in his life than the loss of the
the single worst environmental calamity
occurring on this continent today, and hardly
anybody knows about it outside of the state.
What's happening.. .well, let me tell you what
used to happen.
What used to happen is the Mississippi
River, which drains the third largest watershed
on earth, would flow down, and it would over
flow spectacularly. When De Soto came
through therehe was the first white person
who came through, back in the 1400she
ended up dying of a fever in a tree because the
only way to rescue it really is to bring the
Mississippi at the time was estimated ... of
Columbia River down there. . .which will not
course the Spanish were always a little had on
statistics, hut they estimated the river was sixty
happen, I guarantee youbecause you won't
let it happen. Right? Please don't let it happen. But that's the kind of rescue we're talking aboutif even that would work. So, we
created a short-term, highly profitable indus-
try out of an eternally sustainable natural
resource. And the industry that we created is
now in the early stages of grand-scale collapse.
MississiPpi
RIvER DELTA
miles wide. And in 1928, even though it was reg-
ulated to some degree, it was forty miles wide.
So it could have been true. It may have been
wider than sixty miles. All the Indians were sitting up in trees and fishing for gar with pieces
of drowned animals as bait. That's how they sur-
vived during Mississippi River floods. What
those floods did was, they brought down the
Middle Westand the East and West, too. The
Now, Exhibit C, The Mississippi River
eroded topsoil from Shelby, Montana to
Delta. I wrote a book that Bo, my agent, my
Ceasar's Head, So. Carolina to Tucumcari,
New Mexicothat's the extent of the water-
new agent, just mentioned. It's about an
undercover game warden. The guy is based in
Louisiana. His name is Dave Hall, and he's
shed. All of that water bringing all of that silt
to Southern Louisiana.
Marc Risner
14
It's estimated that in the time of
Now working hand-in-glove with those
Sumeria, maybe four thousand years ago, the
Gulf of Mexico was at Baton Rouge, which is
now about 80 miles inland. When Christ was
levees, you have a whole lot of dams on the
born, probably it was around New Orleans,
Missouri River, which is by far the biggest con-
now about 50 miles inland. It won't be inland
for long.
What's happened is this: we decided
we could improve the Mississippi River and its
tributaries. First, by building levees along the
river to protect New Orleans, which I think by
any measure was an asinine place to locate a
tributor of silt, is also dammed repeatedly. If
you've ever flown across the country, you've
flown across those huge lakes on the Missouri
which are 100 to 150 miles long. Those are
some of the biggest dams in the world. In fact,
I think, about six of the top 20 in sizenot in
cityall the mosquitoes, it's below sea-level,
it's right in the world's foremost hurricane
path, but the French, by God, went in there
and said, "We're going to build a city here
and we're going to make nature conform to
River. Those dams have already stopped billions and billions of tons of silt. It comes to a
dead halt behind those dams. I once sat down
our plan." So, they invented the science of, or
re-invented the science of building levees.
And then, when the Corps of Engineers got
nages to trucks and took a two and a half ton
truck, which is sort of a U-Haul truck, as my
standard, and figured out that the Mississippi
involvedanybody here from the Corps?
River used to bring down 262 thousand U-
Come on, raise your hands, there must be
somebody here. Anyway, they got involved
and they had the federal treasury at their
Haul trucks of silt every day. What we're down
to now is maybe 60 thousand, maybe 70 thou-
disposal, and they mined it with a
backhoe
enough to maintain the old dynamic equilibri-
and they spent billions and billions of dollars and they build some serious levees on
um of land and sea. So, even if the levees
weren't there, there is not enough silt left in
that river. They love, they used to love, to take
the river to build the land. What used to hap-
people around before they became the
penthis is dynamic equilibriumwas a con-
world's number one protector of the environ-
stant war between the sea and the Mississippi
River. The Mississippi would bring down silt.
It would build up land. The Gulf of Mexico
would charge in, especially during hurricanes.
ment and explain how the levees were so
big that each linear inch outweighed an elephantor two elephants. I don't know if they
were Indian or African elephants. Anyway
big levees. So big that hang gliders practice
takeoffs on them. But what those levees also
do is they constrain the river and they don't
allow those forty-and sixty-mile-wide floods to
occur anymore.
tributaries. The Tennessee River, which is sort
of like a sausage chain of reservoirs. The
height, but in massare on the Missouri
and calculatedyou know, again, huge figures don't mean much. So I converted ton-
sand. It sounds like a lot, but it's not nearly
It would eat up the marshes; the saltwater
would kill the marshes; the sea would
advance. The sea has also been rising at a rate
of a couple of centimeters a century, I think,
since the last Ice Age. But despite that, the
Mississippi in its limited sphere of influence
We HiIIe
The Frontier, Noui Lers Dur
The Mth: SvstindbiIit in the Americdn West
over-matched the Gulf. It created new land.
Now, this is very fragile coastal
About one-third of Louisiana was formed
within the last three or four thousand years.
And now, the whole process has gone in
marshit's ephemeral. It comes and it goes,
and nothing kills it faster than salt water
because it's mostly freshwater marsh. It's on
reverse because of the levees, because of the
the coast, but it's freshwater marsh. So,
dams, and because of... oil.
between the saltwater coming in the canals and
killing the freshwater marshes and the canals
Now, some prospector went through
Louisianasome Texan, of coursein 1929,
not very long ago, and had a funny feeling
about a piece of Louisiana marshland. They
hadn't gone into these marshes yet to look for
oil because it was just too damned difficult.
wideningsome canals have started out a hundred feet wide and are now half a mile wide
and the dams stopping the silt and the levees,
the big levees, Louisiana's disappearing off the
face of the earth. The land loss is about a hun-
The only way to get around in the marshes is to
dred acres a day. Think of that. About 50,
be an alligator or to be a Cajunbecause you
maybe 60 square miles a year are disappearing
underwater. Plaquemines Parish, which is one
of the parishes south of New Orleans along the
Mississippi, is scheduled to go entirely out of
existence by the year 2035. Now of course, if we
have a few big hurricanes, they can accelerate
this process dramaticallyeven exponentially.
have to kind of walk and swim and slither at the
same time. I mean, this is seven million acres of
drowned land down there. But this Texan,
whose name was Haywood, thought there's got
to be oil under those marshes, and he dug a
well. And of course a gusher went up. So oil
became a huge industry just within the last fifty
years in Louisiana. Now, the oil companies had
the same problemgetting around in the
Now in terms of natural resources,
what does this mean? Well, we built the dams
so we got river regulation, we got fewer floods,
marsh. How do you get in there to lay all your
equipment in and dig the wells and so on and
so forth and bring the oil out? Well, you get rid
we got a little bit of navigation out of the
of the marsh. It's real simple. You dig what
used to be called tranasses. This is how the
Cajuns got around these marshes. They dug
els that were just wide enough for their
pirogue, which was a little hollowed-out
the Tennessee. The levees, of course, protected
New Orleans and allowed the city to be a port
because you can have deep draft ship traffic in
there. The oil that comes out of the marshes is
valued at billions of dollars every year. But this
is an example where the natural resources that
cypress-tree boat. Well, the oil companies said
that's a great idea. But let's build these tranasses about two hundred feet wide so we can get
were supplanted or destroyedand it's getting
worse all the timewere so valuable that by
some calculations, the loss will soon be equal
some serious equipment in. And that's what
they've done. In the last fifty years about ten
to the gain.
these little channels with little flat-bladed shov-
Missouri River, we got some hydropower out
the damswe got a lot of hydropower out of
thousand miles of canals have been dug
There's a professor at Tulane Law
School named Oliver Houckhe used to be
through these marshes.
chief counsel at the National Wildlife
Mdrc
Federationwho has made this the kind of
obsession that Dave Hall has made it. He has
calculatedand whether you believe him is up
Deisoer
years, depending how much we import, and
we've got shipping that depends on the port
of New Orleans. Oliver Houck says New
to youthat about 14 or 15 billion dollars
Orleans is going to be at the door of the Gulf
worth of productivity comes out of, is the result
of development of southern Louisianathe levees, the oil exploration, and so on and so forth.
in about the year 2040, which is 50 years away,
unless something is done.
Now the marshes, you know, create a
But about 10 to 11 billion dollars is the loss:
the loss in water fowl, the loss in fish, the loss
in shellfish. It used to be when you went into a
bar in New Orleans you ordered a beer which
cost maybe a nickel and they gave you a plate
of oysters free. I think a 20 lb. bag of crabs,
blue crabs, was about a dollar. Cray fish were
cheaper than that. I mean it was the fat of the
land. There were probably 150 million overwintering waterfowl down there. It was the
most spectacular waterfowl habitat anywhere
on earth. Half of that is scheduled to disappear within the next 25 years. All of it could
ultimately disappear. The city of New Orleans
will drown unless we somehow figure out how
to protect it, because the ocean is advancing.
hurricane buffer which is no longer there
when the ocean is at your door. What the
Corps of Engineers is talking about now is
building enormous ring levees around the
But protect it at what cost?
You can dip your finger into the
marshes just to the east of New Orleans and
taste saltwater and brackish water today. Ten
years ago, you had to go 20 miles further east
to taste it. Again, a big hurricane could make
it all happen faster. So, what we got was a
short-term economy, and our descendants are
being mailed the bill. We got dams that are
going to silt up maybe in.. . oh, depends on
whom you believe, 75 years, 200 years, 300
years. On the Missouri River, which drains a
highly erodable watershed, they'll silt up fast.
Then the reservoirs are going to be good farm
land, but not usable for much else. We got oil
that's going to run out probably in 30 to 50
city. Sort of a vertical moat to keep the humcane floods from coming in. Ringing Morgan
City, which is just a little, tiny city down there,
they estimate would cost about half a billion
dollars. So ringing New Orleans is going to
cost billions and billions and billions of dol-
lars if that even works; nobody knows if it
does. The only other answer really is to tear
out the levees, at least below New Orleans,
tear down the dams on the Missouri River, or
plug up all those canals, which will not hap-
pen because there's too much wealth being
generated by those things operating as they
do. So, I raise this, I guess, as an example of
non-sustainability that we can do almost nothing to correct.
The problem with human beings is
we have such capabilityso much capability
and so little foresight. We can't figure these
things out before we get in so deep that we
don't know how to climb out of the doo-doo.
And there are examples after examples of
this. Now, sooner or later, I have to get into
the forestry issue. (Must have been sooner.)
You know, I don't tell lies about things I don't
know much about, and I don't know much
about forestry. I've read a lot of documents
coming out of the environmental business
We Iflhled The FrooNei, No
Lets Bui
The MLt: Sust
that say we are logging our forests in the
Pacific Northwest at a rate that can't l)e sustained. I've read industry documents that say
just the opposite. I think it depends a lot on
whether you're talking about private land or
whether you're talking about National Forests.
But there certainly is evidence that lands that
have been logged are not regenerating at the
rates they were expected to. In California,
there is evidence that what used to be coniferous forests are chapparal because, believe me,
we logged like nobody ever logged down
there. That was back during the time of the
Gold Rush. When these forests were logged,
with our extremes in climatewhich means
terrific rains in the winter and no rain at all in
the summera lot of topsoil probably eroded
and the forests as they were never came back.
ctfflthj in the ftmecdn West
examples that you can point to where we can
make our actions more sustainable and still
provide lots of wealth and lots of employment.
One of my favorite examples happens to be a
project that I'm a consultant to so, of course,
I'm going to say nice things about that. In the
Sacramento Valley, we have about 600 thou-
sand acres of land that can only grow rice.
Cadillac Desert, I did some
follow-up research and I discovered that the
five biggest water users in California are in
this order: irrigated alfalfa, irrigated pasture,
Now, when I wrote
irrigated cotton, irrigated rice, and Los
Angeles. Everybody used to think Los Angeles
used 90% of the state's water. Not true. Los
Angeles uses actually only two million acre
feet. Alfalfa uses twice as much and produces
a lot less wealth.
Now, I'm not going to get into an argument
RICE AND WVI'ERFOWL HABITAT
with some of you who know much more about
this than 1 do. But I think a case can be made,
at least worldwide, that we're logging at a rate
The ultimate example, to me, of misallocation of water was rice, because there's a
beyond sustainabilitythat we're grazing at a
rate beyond sustainability, and, in the case of
Los Angeles, where you have a city that is
Sacramento Valley, and if you've driven down
Interstate 5, you know it hits about 190° down
going to run out air before it runs out of
water, we're settling beyond sustainability.
We're putting too many people in confined
placesthat simply can't sustain them.
crop that grows in standing water in the
there in the summer time. It just didn't make
any sense to me. So I built a kind of cottage
industry around attacking the rice crop in
California, and I made some pretty good
Again, sustainability is a new idea. It's
a new concept when you apply it at this macro
money at it. Then, one day, I got a call from
the rice growers' association, who invited me
level. We're way behind the learning curve.
We really don't know how to make human
activity sustainable. We are mining almost
out on what they called, with no trace of
everything.
your enemies, in order to hate them more.
And, of course, I had 20 or 30 growers all
lined up in the room like a country church,
and they all formed in a semi-circle around
MOVING
Towiu
SUSTAINABILITY
Now, to begin to draw this to a close
on a happier note, I think that there are some
irony, a "goocl-wiil" tour. So I went. I went on
the theory that you should always get to know
Mic 091s0e1
me and let me have it. But they did convince
me of several things
First of all, that the rice acreage supports a lot of waterfowl. Secondly, that it sup-
ports a lot of other species as well. Third,
because of the nature of the soils, that they
can't grow anything else but rice on that land.
The rice acreage is what used to be the wet-
time and we're going to flood it. We're going
to give the rice growers more water, not take
water away from them, but try to give them
more, in the winter when diversions don't
harm the salmon fishery. When you get the
rivers really going in the winter time, instead
of five thousand to six thousand cubic feet per
second in the Sacramento River, you get 300
lands. Wetlands are by definition poorly
or 400 hundred thousand at times. We're
drained. And this was all the alluvial overflow
from the Sacramento River. The fine silt that
settled down over eons became this so-called
adobe clay soil, which is virtually impervious.
going to try to divert that water. There should
It doesn't drain. It rains on that soil in the
winter time and it just sits there. The evaporation rates are greater than percolation rates,
which is very rare in agricultural soils. So,
some poor farmers came out from Nebraska
in the late 1800s, lured by the railroads, and
were told that they could have a wonderful life
in California growing all these wonderful
crops, and they dumped them in the
be no impact on the fishery at that time of
year. We're going to flood that rice land and
create "de facto" wetlands. You get a huge
amount of waterfowl food production when
you flood these wetlands, not just the leftover
rice, a couple hundred million pounds of it
after harvest, but snails and invertebrates and
copepods and all kinds of other creatures,
and shoots that waterfowl have to eat in order
to survive the migration back north.
So at least theoretically it works out
beautifully. You grow rice in the summer, you
Sacramento Valley on some soil where they
couldn't grow anything. Everything they tried
to grow didn't. But, they finally figured out
Our consulting hydrologist and biologist
that rice thrivedand they probably had
think we could actually double the population
never eaten rice in their lives! They're all
Swedes. Anyway, there developed in that
of the Pacific flywayadd about five to ten
region a rice economy of about 450 thousand
acres. And these guys convinced me that if it
weren't for the rice, there would be only one
other possible crop, which is safflower, which
hundred-thousand acres of land, which we
hope to do. Then, just as the waterfowl are
beginning to go back north, you drain the
lands and grow rice again. You don't have
is of no use to anyone except bees, I guess.
Those were the options.
So, we've created a project now where
to spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying land to create refuges. And, in fact, with
unemployment rates about 25% there, most
we're going to try to borrowwe being the
people are violently opposed to the idea of
Nature Conservancy and some other conserva-
buying land for refuges because you inevitably
tion groups that I'm working withwe're
take agricultural land out of business. So we
hope that we've come up with a scheme that
going to try to borrow their land in the winter
harvest the crop, you make money on the
crop. Then, you grow waterfowl in the winter.
million ducks and geese by flooding a couple
We Nilled The Frontier. Noui Let's llur The Mth: SustainbiIit in the Rmerican West
restores nature and allows business as usual to
a large degree. We don't lose any jobs; we create jobs.
LrvINc WATER IN THE
RIVERS
though, our values have begun to change, in
part because our economy has begun to
change. It's beginning to make better economic sense to leave water in the river rather
than take it out.
It used to be in the West that the
I just gave a talk to the Rocky
whole idea of what you did with a river was
you took all the water out of it because that
Mountain Institute to a bunch of business and
was the only way you did anything useful with
what I was saying here was true. When you
it. It was rio damn good in the river, but it
take a crop like alfalfa, which uses 25% of all
the water in the state of Colorado, and figure
out what it's worth, it's only worth $170 mil-
could make you a lot of money if you took it
out. It started with hydraulic mining in the
canyons when they got where they couldn't
pan the gold anymore. It was all panned out;
utility leaderstried to convince them that
lion which, you know, is nothing anymore.
Right? Then you take tourism, which is largely
then they started attacking the walls with these
enormous hydraulic hoses and whole canyon
sides collapsed. You know about that. That's
water dependent in that state. People don't
how the doctrine of western water law got
established. Appropriated rights doctrine
means you take water out of the river, you
kayak the rivers. The Arkansas River is now
come to Colorado to watch alfalfa fields being
irrigated. They come to fish the rivers, to
the most popular white-water river in the
world. \ATell, the tourism industry is worth
don't leave it in there. It's not a beneficial use
under the law or it wasn't until recently if the
water was in the river. But it was a beneficial
about five billion dollars to the state of
use if you took it out. So it was illegal, in
water used in the state. So doesn't it make
effect, for water to be in the river! Now, that's
sense to leave more water in the rivers so peo-
beginning to change. But the main problem
for those of us who've argued for better instream flows is that we can't come up with a
good economic rationale for them. Now, Bo
Shelby, as a kayaker, knows something about
ple can actually use it in the rivers? So they
this. He'll argue the river's beautiful with
water in it and it's ugly with water out of it.
We, kayakers, like to go down the river and we
spend some money. You know, we buy snacks
and twinkees and stuff. So we add to the econ-
omy of the region. But compared to a guy
who's growing, let's say, a hundred thousand
acres of cotton on what used to be a river, it's
tough to make economic arguments. Lately,
Colorado, as opposed to the $170 million that
alfalfa is worth, and alfalfa takes 25% of all the
can fish it, kayak it, spend some serious
money, not just buy some Twinkees, but you
know, stay in a motel and help the local economy get going. I'm being tongue-in-cheek, but
water tourism is becoming a very important
industry: rafting along the Arkansas River, the
upper Delores, an(l fishingespecially fishing
'cause the fishermen, you know, spend $170
million in a couple of weeks on lures, flies and
alcohol. On top of that, if you leave the water
in the river, you create potential hydropower
downstream that you lose when you take water
out to irrigate crops. The rule of thumb in
M df C
agriculture is, if you take out 200 cubic feet
per second to irrigate alfalfa, about 100 cfs
manages to percolate back and become the
Disner
And, there are all these other rivers. We can
log this forest because there are all these
other forests. We'll never run out. If you really
river flow again. The rest is evapotranspirated.
Well, you calculate the loss of 100 cfs over a
three thousand foot drop, which is what you
Alaska. It is, I think, the prevailing dogma in
the American West. But we are running out of
have below you in Colorado. You've got
everything. We're running out of salmon,
Hoover Dam, Glen Canyon Dam, all the dams
on the tributaries above them. That 100 cfs that
you lost would be worth about 24 megawatts of
power if it were still in the river. That is worth
about five million dollars over the course of the
irrigation season. And the equivalent amount
of alfalfa that you could raise would be worth
about $400 thousand. So again, you've created
we're running out of topsoil, we're running out
ten times the wealth by leaving the water in
the river. More importantly, you have
advanced the cause of sustainability.
Now, you know, these are tiny, tiny little examples of what I'm driving atbut you
gotta start somewhere. The main thing we
have to doto bring this to a closeis
over-
come a couple of myths.
THE FRONTIER MyrH
One, and I guess the title of my
speech alludes to this, is the frontier myth,
which says in effect, "we will never run out of
anything." This myth is common to all giant
countries. Any people who are lucky enough
to inherit half a continentBrazil, we,
Canada, Russiahave always had this sense
that they'd never run out of anything. So, the
Canadians have gone wild with logging, the
Brazilians have gone wild with damn building,
because they can't really stand to look at that
huge expanse of uncivilized continent.
They've got to do something with it. They fig-
ure well, we can build a dam on this river.
want to get a dose of this thinking, go to
of forests. Which isn't to say we stop grazing, we
stop logging, and so on. But it is to say that we
recognize that we can't go on this way forever.
Now, the other thing we have to realizeand this is the tough one for Westerners, I
thinkis that the whole myth of the frontier
had a concomitant myth, which is that of the
rugged individualist. Everybody believes that,
you know, back East, well, it was just a bunch of
namby-pambys who stayed there and everybody
who came out here was a rugged individualist!
Well, now I really begin to offend people. I believe in all honesty that in the West, we
have preached individualism and practiced
socialism longer than anywhere else in this
country. And we've done it in such clever, devious ways that we've gotten away with it.
The American West has always been an
example of cleverly disguised socialism. There's
always been lots of welfare for somebody or
other. It began with the railroads, who got
enormous grants of land in return for laying
the track out here so people would come out
and settle. That was welfare for the rich.
Then, we have welfare for the poor in the
form of the Homestead Acts, which essentially
gave people free land (which wasn't available
in the East) in exchange for coming out here
and trying to settle it. We got all kinds of per-
mutations of the Homestead Actswe had
the Timber and Stone Act, the Swamp and
We llhtJe
The FrofiMer,
oui Lets DIIIq The Muth: Ssi1dbffltij
Overflow Act in the 1850s and '60s. What they
usually ended up doing was enriching a few
thE AflIE[iCdF West
We've got to get beyond the myth. We've got
to get beyond these programs that encourage
acquired under the Timber and Stone Act
non-sustainable living. That's really what
you're talking aboutwhen you put so many
because sailors could get off the ship in San
cattle on public lands that the soils are
Francisco, take title to 160 acres, sign the dcccl
degraded; when you put so much water on
over to the capitalist who was acquiring the
land that never would have been brought into
whole North Coast and then ship out. They got
a bottle of whiskey, they got a night in a brothel,
agricultural production because of the salts
and selenium, but was because the water was
so cheap and then the land begins to die. A
lot of the stuff that we've done that I think
already rich guys. Whole redwood forests were
an(l that was all they really wanted.
So, socialism. When you talk about
subsidizing water, you're talking about 25% of
all the water sold in the West. The Bureau of
Reclamation sells all of its agricultural water at
hugely subsidized rates. The people in
California who get water from the State Water
Project, pay $80 an acre foot. People next
door who get it from the Central Valley
Project pay $6, $8, $10 an acre foot. WE, the
taxpayers, are paying the difference. This is
socialist water. Nobody likes to admit that, but
that's what it is. When you set a cow out on
BLM land, 300 million acres of it, you pay an
average $1.92 or $1.94 a month to graze that
can't he sustained was caused by the government. And this is where I suddenly turn into a
Republican. Unfortunately, the Republicans
by and large are the ones who want to keep
these programs going. There's an irony, I
think, in that, a terrific ironyhut I think it's
a fact. The Democrats created them over the
Republicans' resistance decades ago. Today
the Democrats want to reform them, but a lot
of Republicans suddenly think they're great.
The planet is not a shmoo. I don't
know if many of you are old enough to
remember that cartoon strip, Lil' Abnerthis
cow on that land. Well, I have a rancher
makes me fel old. Anyway, there was the little
friend in Montana who leases land for graz-
creature about this big that just kind of drift-
ing, and he charges people $12 to $14 per
AUM. (animal unit month). So again, we're
ed around and it liked to he eaten, and it
giving something away below cost.
become a kind of a catchword for a great
The below cost timber sales argument, I'm not going to get into that here. Are
you kidding? But, there at least is an argu-
ment that we are selling timber in some
national forests below costs, an argument
that's been taken seriously by a lot of people,
including ME, and I think we can make that
argument strongly in the case of the Tongass
Forest in Alaska.
So, let's practice what we preach.
replenished eternally. This shmoo has
dealtoo good a deal to be true. I think we've
been operating with a shmoo mentality, and it
has to stop. It's becoming a matter of life or
death for the planet that we figure out how to
stay wealthy and how to sustain the planet that
makes us so. Those of you who are students
are the ones who are going to have to figure it
out, because my generation has done a terrible job of it. We've essentially left you a mess
and I apologize. But, you know, humanity can
Mdrc Aeisnei
rise to occasions, and this is the occasion of a
lifetime for you. There is an old Chinese curse
which says, "May you live in interesting times,"
and these are
.
.
. very interesting times.
Thank you very much.
I PROMISED I WOULD TAKE A FEW QUESTIONS,
COMMENTS, OR GRATUITOUS LNSULTS...
Q: I wondered if you would care to
comment a little more about the concept of
sustainability. Thinking about the examples
you've given us whether the notion of sustainability which has sort of a warm, fuzzy feeling
to it, but doesn't it in effect take one's eye off
the ball? We're not so much dealing with sustainability vs non-sustainability, as we are that
our actions have consequences. In fact, if one
were to look at tourism in Colorado or anyplace else, one could argue that may or may
not be sustainable, if there's a whole infrastructure that goes with that and there is a set
of consequencesmany of which are unfore-
way as we're doing as, for example, is going
on in the Amazon with slash and burn agriculture. And that burning that they practiced, it
may have been intervention with nature, but it
was sustainable intervention. What's going
on in the Amazon is not sustainable. You
get one or a few years of grazing down
there on that soil and then it's gone. So, I
guess what I'm talking about is treading
more lightly. I think we're six billion people on the planet, a lot of sustainability is
impossible. We can't reduce our oil con-
sumption to the level that we're never
going to run out. But we certainly can pro-
duce a car that gets 40 or 50 miles a gallon, instead of 26 miles a gallon, no matter
what Dan Quayle says, we can do that.
We certainly can practice sustainable
grazingthe Savery method seems much
more promising when it comes to soil preser-
vation than the kind of cattle grazing that's
been going on for decades. I've even heard
seen. So, I've wondered whether sustainability is
people argue that clearcutting may not actual-
one of these nice notions, but when you really
ly be the best silvicultural method in the
look at it, is not really where the action is.
A: Well, it's, you know the Indians, or
the Native Americans, who were here before
Northwest. They may not know what they're
talking about, but I guess I'm using it as more
of an ideal than as something we can actually
the whites came, practiced a lot of intervention in the landscape, as we now know. They
achieve. But that's the direction we simply
burned forests. Usually, they were smart
enough to burn them when they weren't
going to burn out of control, but what they
Q: How do we change our economics? I think today we have an economy that
have to go in.
so they could create a lot of grass which would
faults sustainability. Maybe if I'm a sharp economist what I want to do is cut down my forest
which has a low growth rate, put my money in a
bring in a lot of deer. They did it for them-
bank which has a high interest rate, and live
selves. They did it so that they could eat. But,
they also created a habitat for other species.
very safe, sustainably off the interest. How can
you change that in a fundamental way?
A: Well, it involves, I guess, have any
of you read Al Gore's book? He talks about it
wanted to do was get rid of the undergrowth
They managed, they manipulated, but they
didn't do it in such a monstrously destructive
We KiIIe
The Frortier, No
Lers 8llr The Mtt: SustuinbiIit Ui the Rme1icd
a lot in religious terms, and I think that's our
most challenging leap. You know, our fore-
bearers who came out here and decided to
create as much wealth as they could as fast as
possible in any way they could, were greedy to
a large degree, but in the back of their minds
was the command from GenesisGo forth,
subdue, multiply, conquer the earth, however
it goes. Fortunately, in the Bible there's always
a passage somewhere that contradicts something else that was said. I don't know the Bible
well enough because I was brought up
Unitarianhut, somewhere in there, there
must be something that contradicts that command from Genesis. I think that, you know,
fifty years ago creating a lot of wealth was
something that people may have actually
wanted to do for their kids. What it's evolved
into today is the creation of tremendous
amounts of short-term gain at the expense of
our children. We are eating our grandchildren, and I don't know how anybody can
argue with that. We simply have to come up
with a new definition of what's good for our
grandchildren. The creation of immediate
wealth by as much resource extraction as pos-
sible is not good for our grandchildren.
Leaving the resources alone to a greater
degree is. And there you get into an almost
spiritual or religious issue. I get in arguments
all the time with water developers when I
make this argument: "We don't care about
our grandchildren." They get furious with me.
They look at this fantastic system we created
in Californiaagriculture, dams, aqueducts,
look at all the wealth it creates! Look how
comfortable your kids and your grandchildren
are going to heto which the only response
you have is, "Sure, as long as it lasts." And I'm
just saying all the evidence I see shows me it's
not going to last that much longer. A lot of
West
people think well, we're going to come up
with answers. Every reservoir is going to silt
up. That's a known hydrologic fact. Now for
years, people have been saying, "Well, we'll figure out how to get the silt out of the reservoirs."
But, nobody's come up with an answer. We
built a whole bunch of nuclear power plants
without first, figuring out what to do with the
nuclear waste. And we still don't have an
answer to that. So, it's a matter of humility,
more than anything.
A
photo by John Porter Ratzloff Photography, Maple Plain, Minnesota
=
0TH WORLDWIDE AND
or a North American scale,
H
ASociIi. ASI1
Ofl
C oflflueSI CnnoI fJ
UJU
Siic
inod
I1IUU.
nitive peoples are at the
ctti of the present environmental and economic crisis. This
is no coincidence. Five hundred
years after the invasion, native
peoples still maintain a signifi-
cant presence on the North
American continent, and in the
Nfflive Feoles nd the
Environmenlifi Crisis
We hoie that North American eoIes mill
reconie indigenous models nd values
s tile hsis for future discussions of susRecovery Project; Internationally
recognized Native rights orga-
).
ifflDIF1
i
eon
e
df
nizer and activist
Western hemisphere overall.
Although an estimated 2000
native communities have
become extinct during the past
four centuries, over 700 commu-
nities remain on the continent.
Two hundred are in Alaska, 80
remain in California, and hun-
dreds more are scattered as
islands in a sea of what is called
the U.S. and Canada, thus
retaining lands reserved by
treaty or other agreement.
Wiflon
Although native peoples demo-graph-
ically represent a minority population in
North America, we maintain land occupancy
over substantial areas of the continent. In
many regions in the U.S., for example, parts
of New Mexico, Arizona, northern Minnesota,
the Dakotas, and Montana, we are the majority population. The statistics for the Arctic and
sub arctic are even more striking.
From the 50th parallel north, in what
is called Canada, the majority of the population-85% or moreis native. The Northwest
Territories, for instance, is under legislative
mandate to divide the land into two native territoriesone Dene and one Inuit. This is not
surprising, because almost everyone there is
native. However, elsewhere across the north
northern Quebec, Newfoundland, Labrador,
Ontarioall the way to British Columbia, the
northern population is decidedly native. The
native population is the majority population
in the upper two-thirds of Canada, i.e., about
one-third of the continent. Within this context, native thinking, the survival of native
communities, and the issues of sovereignty
and control over natural resources are central
to North American resource politics and the
challenge for North Americans of conscience.
Consider the following:
Over 50 million indigenous people
inhabit the world's remaining rainforests.
Over one million indigenous people
are slated to be relocated for hydroelectric
dam projects in the next decade.
All nuclear weapons have been "tested"or detonated in the lands of indigenous
peoples by the U.S., and over 600 of these
have occurred within the lands of the
Shoshone Nation alone.
Two-thirds of all uranium resources
within the "borders of the U.S."underlie native
reservations, and Indians produced 100% of all
federally controlled uranium in 1975.
One-third of all Western, low-sulphur
coal is on located Indian lands in the US., with
four of the 10 largest coal strip mines in the
country in these same areas.
Fifteen of the present 18 recipients of
nuclear waste research grants (so-called moni-
tored retrievable nuclear storage sites) are
Indian communities.
The single largest hydroelectric
pro-
ject on the continentthe James Bay
Hydroelectric Projectis on Cree and Inuit
lands in northern Canada.
In order to explore the consequences
of U.S. colonial occupation for the health, sov-
ereignty, culture, and environment of native
peoples, I will briefly discuss three subjects: (1)
the relationship of indigenous values to sustainable communities and economies, (2) the legacy of colonialism and the present political and
economic circumstances of native North
America, with an emphasis on North American
energy issues, and (3) native resistance and the
rebuilding of native communities.
SusTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: MINO BIMAATISIIWIN
The key to a sustainable society is
accountability to natural law. Indigenous, or
land-based societies (wherever they are found
in the world or in history) understand that all life
is accountable to natural law. Laws made by such
groupings as nations, states, provinces, and
cities are inferior to this supreme law. In the
Anishinabeg community, we have a value system
and code of behavior or ethics that keeps cornmunities and individuals in line with natural law.
A SocieIi Dse on Conquest Cannot Be Sustine:
"Mino bimaatisiiwin"or the "good
life" is a central value to the Anishinabeg people who, to this day, occupy a great portion of
Ndtive
Peop'es fr The Environmentifi Crisis
other institutions for generations in a manner
which would today be characterized as "sus-
the North American continent. Mino
tainable."
By nature, a social and economic sys-
birnaatisiiwin guides the way of life and is the
essence of sustainability on this land. An alternative interpretation of the word is "continuous rebirth." Two basic tenets essential to liv-
tem based on these ascribed indigenous values must be decentralized, self-reliant, and
closely based on the land of that ecosystem.
Not surprisingly, most indigenous economies
ing within natural law and within mino
comprise a diversified mix of hunting, harvest-
bimaatisiiwin are cyclical thinking and reciprocal relations with the Earth.
ing, and gardening; all use a balance of
human intervention and care, and are in
Cyclical thinking, common to most
keeping with the religious/cultural systems'
reliance upon the wealth and generosity of
nature. A nurturing relationship with the nat-
indigenous or land-based cultures and value
systems, is an understanding that the world,
time, and all parts of the natural order flow in
cycleswhether the moon, the tides, our bodies, seasons, or life itself. Within this understanding is a clear sense of birth and rebirth,
and a knowledge that what one does today will
affect one in the future.
Reciprocal relations defines the
responsibilities and ways of relating between
humans and the ecosystem. Simply stated,
with few exceptions, "the resources"of the
ecosystem, whether wild rice or deer, are recognized as animate, and, as such, as gifts from
the Creator. Thus, one could not take life
without a reciprocal offering, usually tobacco
or saymah. Within the practice of reciprocity
is also an understanding "that you take only
what you need and leave the rest."
ural world is essential to indigenous societies.
The Anishinabeg or Ojibway Nation
represents an example of a sustainably based
community. Within a region encompassing the
southern parts of four Canadian provinces and
the northern parts of five American states, this
nation retains a common culture, language, history, governance, and land base. According to
international law, these are the five indicators of
the existence of a nation of people. This nation
functions within a decentralized economic and
political system, and much of the governance is
left to local bands (similar to villages or counties) through clan and extended family systems.
The vast natural wealth of this region and the
resource management systems, which empha-
size sustained yield, have enabled the
Implicit in the concept of Mino
Anishinabeg to prosper for many generations.
bimaatisiiwin is a continuous inhabitation of
place, an intimate understanding of the relationship between humans and the ecosystem,
and a recognition of the need to maintain the
This system provides sustenance for both
domestic production and production of
exchange for export. Whether the resource is
balance. These values and cultural tenets
wild rice or whitefish, the extended family
works as a production unit that harvests the
make it possible for many indigenous peoples
to maintain economic, political, religious, and
resource within a social and resource management code which ensures sustained yield.
Wionn
The Anishinabeg cultural practices
through an expansion of centralized power by
maintained for thousands of years are indicative of the way of life in many native or landbased communities. This cursory overview
represents a small window through which to
view the context of indigenous values, economic systems, and their relevance in the present discussion of "sustainable development."
(1) the spread of Christianity, Western science, and other forms of Western thought,
CONQUEST: A WAY OF LIFE
In sharp contrast to the Anishinabeg
practice is the system of capitalism and other
forms of industrialism, which lack respect for
people and their environments in an insatiable quest for resources. This is particularly
obvious in the U.S., which consumes one-third
of the world's resources and hosts only 6% of
the world's population.
Columbus provided the entree for the
(2) the socioeconomic practice of capitalism,
and (3) the military-political practice of colo-
nialism. The appropriation of land and
resources, which has characterized these relations, has effectively placed indigenous populations in circumstances of material poverty
and ill-health.
As Ward Churchill and I wrote some
time ago, "Land has always been the issue central to North American politics and economics. Those who control the land are those who
control the resourceswhether the resource
at issue is oil, natural gas, uraniumwater,
agriculture, or land ownership. Social control
and all the other aggregate components of
power are fundamentally interrelated. "This
unparalleled on a world scale, and in its wake
may be true everywhere, but the peculiarities
in this hemisphere, with its imported apparatus of socioeconomic power, make the equa-
caused the disruption necessary to unseat
tion especially acute.
system into the Western hemisphere. The
holocaust that occurred in the Americas is
many indigenous economic and governmental systems. It is the most comprehensive sys-
As a vast portion of the remaining
natural resources in the North American
tem of imperialism ever witnessed by humanity. Although no one knows exactly how many
disposal of toxic and nuclear wastes on
continent still lie under native lands, and as
people have been killed since the invasion,
one conservative estimate suggests that the
population of indigenous people in 1492 was
112,554,000 in the Western hemisphere and
Indian reservations continues, the residual
structures of colonialism make native communities focal points for the excrement of
industrial society. Any discussion of present
28,264,000 in 1980.
environmental circumstances or the possibili-
This genocide facilitated a subsequent process of colonialism which established new relations of dependency and
underdevelopment between indigenous
torical relations.
nations and colonial or settler nations in the
Americas. Three elements define these relations. Thus, colonialism has been extended
ties for sustainable development in a North
American context must recognize these his-
AN ENERGY PoLIcY TakT VIOLATES NATutai. L&w
I want to focus briefly on North
American energy policy from the viewpoint of
R Societq Baseti on Conquest Cannot e Sustned: Native Peoples
native peoples by looking at two specific
The Environmental Crisis
Similar to society itself, North
tive material. Uranium mill tailings, the solid
wastes from the uranium milling stage of the
cycle, contain 85% of the radioactivity originally in the uranium ore. One of these prod-
American energy policy is based on short-term
ucts, radium226, remains radioactive for at
capital gains and accelerated consumption,
rather than long-term sustainability.
least 16,000 years.
issues. These issues involve the development
of nuclear and hydroelectric energy.
Consequently, seemingly endless proposals of
nightmarish proportions loom on the horizon. We have had more than our sharefrom
lethal uranium mines to coal gasification and
slurry pipelines in virtual deserts to the
In 1975, 100% of all federally produced uranium came from Indian reservations. That same year there were 380 uranium
leases on Indian lands, as compared to four
on public and acquired lands. In 1979, there
Frankenstein of all hydroelectric projects, an
were 368 operating uranium mines in the U.S.
Worldwide, estimates are that 70% of urani-
untested ecological manipulation intended
um resources are contained on indigenous
for American markets and an outmoded
lands.
development plan for Quebec.
Thirty years after it blew in, nuclear
The nuclear age blew into Native
America with the first uranium for atomic
energy moved out. This largely coincided with
an aggressive antinuclear movement (only 120
weapons. Next came thousands of uranium
reactors have been built in the U.S., compared to the 1000 reactors proposed for this
mines throughout the Navajo Reservation (an
area the size of West Virginia). Today mostly
abandoned, these mines still emit high levels of
radioactive gases and endanger the community.
According to Victor Gillinsky of the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
"Uranium mining and milling are the most
significant sources of radiation exposure to
the public of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, far
surpassing nuclear reactors and nuclear waste
disposal.. . "(1978). A 1978 report by the Los
Alamos Scientific Laboratory stated that,".
perhaps the solution to the radon emission
problem is to zone the land into uranium
mining and milling districts so as to forbid
country by the year 2000), and a subsequent
drop in uranium prices.
Companies moved to cheaper urani-
um deposits, such as those located in
Saskatchewan Cree, Dené, and Metis lands,
the lands of Australian aborigines, and many
others. And America looked towards hydroelectric power for a cleaner source of electrici-
ty. Hydroelectric energy became the new
myth, and it supported a continental policy of
Manifest Destiny, which clarified the north as
the new frontier.
HmR0ELECrRIc EXPLOITATION:
PRoJEcT
human habitation."
The production of uranium or yellow-
TIIF:JA1Es BAYI
cake from uranium ore usually requires the
is the largest northern drainage system on the
discharge of significant amoimts of water and
the disposal of significant portions of radioac-
North American continent. Virtually every
major river in the heartland ends up there.
J ames Bay, at the base of Hudson Bay,
Wiono
This makes the bay a rich ecosystem teeming
with wildlife. James Bay provides the staging
ground for migratory birds, and a feeding
area for the largest migratory herd of mammals on the continentthe George's River
Caribou herd. Approximately 35,000 Cree,
Innu, Inuit, and Ojibway peoples live within
the region and depend upon the ecosystem.
Their way of life is land-based: a subsistence,
hunting, harvesting, and tourism economy in
which at least 50% of the food and income for
the region originates.
In 1972 in ajoint meeting of a number
of public and private corporations, the James
Bay I Project was introduced in northern
Quebec. The intent was to produce 10,000
megawatts of electricity by putting 1150 square
kilometers of land under water and behind
dams. The initial project concentrated along
the East Main and Rupert Rivers, and ultimately ruined the ecology of some 176,000 square
kilometers, an area about the size of West
uhe
five large reservoirs, four major rivers were
destroyed: the LaGrande was drowned; the
East Main and Opinaca were dried up; and
the headwaters of the Caniapiscau were
diverted to flow south into the LaGrande,
rather than north into Ungava Bay. Five 735KV power lines cut a swath through Cree territory wilderness all the way to the U.S. border. Six new power plants are planned to provide an additional 4500 megawatts of power.
Because these and many more proposals are
seen as "upgrades,"rather than as new pro-
jects, no environmental assessment is
planned even now.
Under present conditions, the environmental impact of the project is devastating. The LaGrande reservoir is contaminated
with mercury and contains the by-products of
vast amounts of decaying vegetation. Mercury
levels at the reservoirs are six times higher
than recognized safe levels, and about two-
Germany. Native peoples did not hear of the
thirds of the people downstream from the
reservoirs have mercury contamination in
project until planning was well underway. Most
of the power produced was to be sold to companies in New York and New England.
their bodies, at levels up to 30 times the allowable level. The devastation of vast amounts of
hunting and trapping territory has resulted in
After several years of litigation, the
economic and social dislocation from loss of
food and changes in cultural practices.
Even with widespread opposition to
the dams, province officials propose a new
phase for the economic development program. Over $62 billion are being raised by
Hydro Quebec on the bond market to secure
investments. If successful, the plan will flood
an area roughly the size of Lake Erie, and use
the electricity to fuel energy-intensive aluminum smelters and export contracts to the
Quebec Court of Appeals ruled that too much
money had already been spent on the project
to abort it, even though no serious assessment
of damage was ever authorized. Further, they
did not consider alternatives that would protect cultural and bioregional diversity. Basing
their decision on the "balance of convenience" argument, the court ruled that the
project should go ahead. Within 11 months,
400 kilometers of paved roads pushed into the
heart of the territory. With the building of
three large power stations and the flooding of
U.S., primarily New England.
Phase II of the James Bay Project will
R Societ Dse
OD
Coouest CdnnoF 8e Sustained: Ndtive Peop'es fr Tti
be even more devastating than phase I. The
first proposal calls for the construction of
another $600 million worth of roads and airports. Numerous small rivers are to be diverted into a large one and 80 dams are to be constructed. The cumulative impact of this phase
not only will destroy caribou calving grounds
and habitat for migratory birds, but also will
destabilize water relations throughout the
ecosystem. According to Jan Bayea of the
National Audubon Society, the entire ecosystem
will be lost in 50 years from these two projects.
Even worse, these projects are
matched by 58 smaller darns proposed for
drainages in the Ontario portion of James
Bay. Those drainages include the Moose River
system, the largest river at the base of the Bay.
MANITOBA HYDROELECTRIC DAMS
In the early 1970s, a series of dams
and power stations were built on the Nelson
and Churchill River systems, and generated
large amounts of power. These two river systems drain one of the largest watersheds in
North America. Construction of the dams and
power stations has caused siltation, which
chokes the reservoirs, and has resulted in
widespread mercury contamination and
destruction of wildlife.
A major consequence of this has been
widespread economic dislocation. At Moose
Lake, for instance, two-thirds of the land base
EnviionmenI Crisis
abuse, and other psychological problems have
flooded the communities.
Today, hydroelectric dams exist or
are planned throughout much of northern
Canada, from Newfoundland to British
Columbia. In all cases, native peoples face
relocation and devastation of their ecosystems. Most of the hydroelectric energy is designated for American markets.
NUCLEAR WASTE CONTAMINATION: HANFORD
Nu LEAR RESERVATION
Nuclear waste remains the largest
obstacle for a peaceful atom, and native peoples again are central to the discussion. The
Hanford Nuclear Reservation is located well
within the treaty area of the Yakima Indian
Nation on the Columbia River. A significant
portion of the 570 square miles of land con-
tained in the nuclear site is contaminated.
Approximately 20 different indigenous peoples reside in the area. In August 1973, over
115,000 gallons of liquid, high-level radioac-
tive waste leaked from a storage tank and
seeped into the ground. The waste contained
cesiumi 37, stron tium90, and plutoniumone
of the most toxic substances known to
humans. Many leaks to this day have included
over 442,000 gallons of radioactive material.
Soil at the site is so contaminated that
officials classified and removed it as high-level
radioactive waste. The U.S. Department of
was flooded and hundreds of people were
moved into a housing project. In the early
Energy changed its definition of nuclear waste
1970s, at least 75% of the food and the majori-
almost indefinitely at the site. Airborne dust
released from smokestacks cannot be contained by the site boundaries.
The U.S. government recently solicited every Indian tribe within U.S. borders to
ty of the income came from the land. Today
this is impossible, and most people must buy
food at stores, often at extraordinarily high
prices. Elsewhere suicide epidemics, substance
so that plutonium contamination can rise
Winonü Ld1u
host a possible nuclear waste storage facility.
ability to continue resistance to colonialism
Officials entice tribes with "no strings
and industrialization in our lands, and to
attached" grants of hundreds of thousands of
rebuild our communities.
dollars. The U.S. Office of Nuclear Waste
In the U.S., examples of indigenous
Negotiation states that its mission is to find "a
state or Indian tribe willing to host a repository or monitored retrievable storage facility for
nuclear waste..." Some reservations accepted
the offers, but most rejected the overtures of
the Department of Energy.
peoples' successful battles to defend their
These experiences are not unique.
They are indicative of the conflict between
industrial society and the land and the people
who live on it. Hundreds of additional examples might be cited from Hopi, Zuni, Acoma,
Isleta, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and other
native nations in the U.S., and from the Cree,
Metis, Athabasca, and other native peoples of
Canada.
Resource extraction plans, or energy
mega-projects are proposed for indigenous
lands, without consideration for the significance of these economic systems, nor of their
value for the future. A direct consequence is
that environmentally destructive development
programs often ensue, and foreclose the
opportunity to continue long-term, continuous, intergenerational, economic practices.
For many indigenous peoples, the reality is
that, as sociologist Ivan Illich has noted, ".
homelands abound. Among these examples in
which native peoples successfully resisted the
destruction of their land and lives are:
The North Cheyenee, who now face
a series of coal developments, opposed and
successfully defeated coal strip mining on
their reservation for almost three decades.
The Gwichin people, with a coalition of environmental groups, successfully
averted the opening of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge in the fall of 1991.
The White Earth Anishinabeg from
northern Minnesota successfully repudiated
the siting of a nuclear waste repository on the
reservation.
The Cree of the Moose River (James
Bay) have thus far stopped the proposal for 12
dams in the river basin.
The year 1992 marked the 500th
anniversary of the Invasion. Many native peopies would say that the invasion is the problem. The denial of the invasion and of its con-
sequences (for example, the destruction of
the practice of development is in fact a war on
subsistence."
more species in the past 100 years than in the
entire period since the Ice Age) indicates the
lack of awareness of industrial societies for the
land and its people.
Indigenous peoples remain on the
Indigenous nations continue their
front lines of the North American struggle to
resistance to industrialization and to a way of
life which is not based on "mino bimaatisiiwin." Many native peoples believe that it is in
the interest of all North Americans to join this
protect the environment. We understand
clearly that our lives, and those of our future
generations, are totally dependent on our
struggle. Indigenous nations see themselves in
a critical position in the entire industrial
frameworkat the point for resource extraction, and simultaneously maintaining living
models of sustainable development, even after
500 years. We hope that North American peoples will recognize these indigenous models
and values as the basis for future discussions
of sustaining life on the earth.
Megwetch
'Wabunong
Zhawanong
Ningabi' anong
Giwedinong
Megwetch.
CT)
C)
photo by David Middleton
//
COOPERATION AND UNDER-
stuiding of common benefits
CvIurI CIshs
nd he Future
of
Tiopicifi Rifin Forest
Conseivtioo
B
DR. DAVID PEARSON,
Professor of
Zoology, Arizona State University
aLhe keys for rational use
'ervation of tropical rain
forests. Unfortunately a clash of
perspectives from numerous culid
tures has made a serious situation grave, and the future of rain
forests lies in the balance.
The significant clashes involve
These forests
re on our kitchen
thles, in our medicine chinets, nd in
our bcki.irds. These ieltionships die
not lust smbolic, hut idther dffect the
udlit of our evertdi. lives.
the local indigenous culture, the
national or regional culture, and
the dominant international cul-
ture. Competition for limited
resources, emphasis on shortterm goals, and ignorance all
help to ensure that clashes,
rather than cooperation, are the
outcome of inevitable interactions involving rain forests.
Di. Dvi
BI0D!wRsrrY
The introduction of the concept of
biodiversity (Wilson 1988) has helped define a
common goal for resolving some of the cultur-
al conflicts surrounding tropical rain forests.
The study of biodiversity involves an under-
standing of all the factors and interactions
that have brought about and maintain the
diversity of life in the world (Ehrlich and
Wilson 1991). Biology is only one part of this
understanding, however, and must be coordi-
nated with other fields of research, such as
economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, chemistry, geology, and law. In addition to
basic research, conversation and education
are essential for understanding biodiversity.
Ecotourism provides an example of
how biodiversity has changed a clash of culture into a cooperative and mutually benefi-
cial endeavor. Many tourists from North
American and Europe want to experience the
rain forest and are willing to pay thousands of
dollars a day to do so. Tourist lodges construct-
ed in intact forests immediately gain several
advantages. National and local politicians perceive these forests to be worth more intact than
they would be were they cut down. Some of the
profits from ecotourism can be used to subsidize national and international scientists, as well
as to provide economic return to local people.
Pisoo
ty applies to temperate zones as well as to
tropical zones, the temperate zone experience
generally is considered to be inadequate for
understanding tropical rain forest biodiversi-
ty. The major conceptsspecies richness,
photosynthesis and herbivores, predator-prey
interactions, pollination, seed dispersion, and
limiting resources and nutrient cyclingare
discussed in the following sections.
Species richness: One aspect of biodiversity involves species numbers. A hectare of
forest in Oregon or in North Carolina may
support 5-15 species of trees, whereas a
hectare of forest in some tropical lowland
areas may have more than 200 species of trees
(Gentry 1988). Over 1,200 species of butterflies and over 500 species of birds have been
found on a 5 km path in southeastern Peru
(Pearson and Cassola 1992). These totals from
a short path through the rain forest are comparable to or greater than the total number of
species of butterflies and nesting birds known
for North America.
Ten or 20 years ago, most biology text
books reliably stated that about one million
species of animals and plants existed in the
world. Systematists have long been struggling
to c1assif, the new organisms that they readily
find on or near the forest floor in tropical
Further, protection of these forests for direct
economic benefit in turn provides both time
and facilities in which to discover additional
rain forests. The forest canopy has been rela-
benefits from intact forests.
gists made a technological breakthrough to
survey the canopy of tropical rain forests for
TRoPIci. RAIN FOREST CONCEPTS
The potential for cooperative use and
conservation of tropical rain forests is not possible unless some basic concepts are understood (Mabberley 1992). Although biodiversi-
tively inaccessible because of logistics and
expense. Recently, however, several entomolo-
insects. With use of a machine that produces a
fog of short-lived insecticide, these entomolo-
gists were able to collect large numbers of
insects from the canopies of individual trees.
Up to a kilo of insects comprising 2,000
Culturdi Cldshes AD
The Future Of TropicI
dfl Forest Conserv(1oii
species, often at a distance of several kilometers, another kilo and 2,000 species of insects
defenses as spines and hard leaf surfaces, the
most common defense is chemical. Virtually
every plant in rain forests contains such toxins
as caffeine, nicotine, and cardiac glycosides to
protect them from herbivores. Extreme specialization is typical of tropical forests. In this
could be collected, but up to 70% of the
case each plant species has its own set of
insect species in the second sample were not
found in the first tree (Erwin 1982).
Estimating that insects make up over
80% of all the species in the world and extrapolating from similar canopy samples in other
chemicals.
By coincidence some or even many of
species was collected from a single tree. In
many cases fewer than 200 of these insect
species had been previously described.
Sampling the next individual tree of this
parts of the world's rain forests, the total number of species in the world is likely to be close
to 10, or even 30 million (Erwin 1982). Thus,
even though the world's tropical rain forests
make up only 6% of the land surface of the
earth, they contain between 50 and 75% of all
the species on earth. We do not have names
for the vast majority of these species, much
less knowledge of their interactions and general biology. This information is essential for
developing management programs and conservation efforts.
Photosynthesis and herbivores: The
these chemicals have physiological effects on
human beings. Many of the medicines we use
today originated from plants. Aspirin came
originally from the bark of a temperate zone
willow tree. Imagine the potential number of
new medicines available from a forest which
supports at least an order of magnitude
greater number of species and chemicals than
do temperate zone forests. By some estimates
we have looked at fewer than 2% of all tropical plants for their medicinal value, and medi-
cines already discovered in tropical forest
yield millions of dollars annually.
Unfortunately, few if any of these economic
benefits find their way back to the people who
live in an around these forests.
most important interaction in rain forests is photosynthesis. Because they are able to convert sun-
Potential economic benefits are also
affected by another tropical forest pattern.
light energy to chemical energy in such great
Unlike temperate zone species, tropical species
tend to have relatively small geographic ranges.
Thus, when a large area of forest is cleared, an
amounts, rain forests are the most productive terrestrial ecosystems in the world (Whitmore 1990).
The second most important interaction in these forests is the attack of herbivores
on photosynthetic leaf surfaces. Instead of
being completely eaten by herbivores, mainly
insects, the plants have developed protection.
In turn, the herbivores have developed better
ways to get around the plants' defenses.
Although some plants use such physical
uncertain number of species are likely to go
extinct. By some estimates, many species,
mainly insects and plants, are going extinct
every day (Mann 1991) as a result of rain forest destruction. In the face of potential economic and health losses, what can be done to
stave off this destruction of rain forests for
short-term gains? How can we garner the time
ii. Dvi
needed to survey the plants for their economic potential?
Luckily libraries exist in all the rain
forests of the world, and these data are
already available. These libraries are the oral
traditions of indigenous peoples. Through
generations these peoples have discovered
uses, including medicinal, for most of the
plants around them. This knowledge could
save scientists decades of field work, but it can-
not now be taken from those who live in the
forests as it was in the past. This time indigenous peoples must be able to profit economically from their knowledge. In so doing we
will establish that these forests are worth more
intact in the long run than they are cut down
for nebulous short-term profits. This change
in perception between the cultures in turn
will provide more time to study the forests and
to understand how they can be better managed and rationally used.
Predator-prey interactions: Another
priority for research in rain forests involves
understanding predator-prey interactions. This
understanding is vital for developing effective
management programs and conservation
plans. Among the many impacts, these interac-
tions directly affect the entire forest through
control of herbivores by their predators.
Because of the diversity and complexity of life in rain forests, one common method
for understanding these systems involves the
use of bioindicators. Bioindicators are taxa of
plants or animals that can be readily studied
with results that can be used to generate
broad generalizations for the entire ecosystem. For example, the Harpy Eagle is a top
predator in Amazonian forests. Typical of
Pison
these top predators is their extreme sensitivity
to small changes in habitat. In this case, if the
focus of a forest management program is to
support a viable population of Harpy Eagles,
all the organisms in the tropic levels below the
eagles should benefit as well from management
practices necessary to maintain the eagles.
But even this relatively simple
approach involves a complexity of interactions
that are lacking in temperate zones. One of the
major prey items of the Harpy Eagle is the
sloth. Sloths are completely herbivorous and
move slowly through the canopy of the forest
while searching for appropriate leaves to eat.
The hair of sloths has longitudinal grooves in
which, because of the warmth and moisture,
algae and fungi quickly grow. The hair thus
turns green, and this combined with the sloth's
slow movement ensures that the eagle has a difficult time finding sloths. This interaction does
not stop here, however. In the hair of sloths
lives a highly specialized sloth moth. These
adult moths apparently avoid their own enemies, insectivorous birds, by seeking out a sloth
and hiding in its hair. Among its strange habits
is how often and where the sloth defecates. The
sloth does not just defecate from the canopy.
Apparently falling sloth dung would be too
much of a signal to predators that a slow-moving prey item was in the area. Instead, once a
week or every other week the sloth descends a
tree trunk, digs a hole at the base of the tree,
and defecates into it. The moths take advantage
of this behavior and rush out of the sloth hair to
lay their eggs on this predigested leaf material.
The larvae hatch from the eggs, feed on the
dung, and eventually grow into adult moths,
which seek another sloth in which to hide. The
CuIturI CIdses find Te Futile Of TiopcI Rnn Forest Conservhon
cycledriven largely by predator-prey interactionsthen begins again.
plants are often pollinated by a single species
of specialized pollinator. This specialization is
Even more common, and perhaps
frequently manifested in a morphology or
more important, are the thousands that occur
between herbivorous insects and their enemies. The sloth interaction with other species
is one of the few examples in which we know
something of the complexity of interspecific
dependence. As was emphasized in the sec-
behavior that gives the animal specific access
tion on species richness, thousands or perhaps millions of species of insects have not yet
been named, much less studied so that the
interactions that are so vital for managing and
rationally using tropical rain forests can he
understood.
Pollination: Another rain forest concept that must be better understood is pollina-
tion. Unlike their temperate zone counterparts, for which wind is an important factor,
tropical rain forest plants depend preclorninately on animals for pollination.
Pollination is critical for sexual repro-
duction, and the process by which the plant
attracts an animal to gather nectar can be
to the nectar and the pollen. The advantage
to the plant is that is pollen is efficiently carried to other individuals of the same species.
The advantage to the pollinator is that there is
a little chance for competitors to successfully
remove the nectar and the associated pollen.
The disadvantage, however, is that, if either of
these tightly interdependent species goes
extinct or suffers a population decline, the
other species will also go extinct or suffer a
population decline. With so much specialization in tropical rain forests, the extinction of a
single species is much more likely to drastically affect other species than it would in temperate zone forests.
Seed dispersion: The dispersion of
seeds from the parent tree is the basis for
another critical interaction. An accumulation
of seeds near the mother tree will attract seed
predators and cause the destruction of most
tar, the animals collects pollen. The animal
of them (Janzen 1970). Any seed that can
move away from this concentration is more
then carries this pollen to the next flower in a
likely to survive. As with pollination, animals,
continued search for nectar. Pollen grains
rather than wind, are more important dis-
thus are passed from the male parts of flowers
to the female parts, and this results in fertiliza-
persers in tropical forests. The seeds are generally encased in a tasty pulp, which attracts
animals such as frugivorous birds and mammals. These animals consume the fruit, and
the seeds pass through their digestive systems
complex. In gathering or consuming the nec-
tion and the formation of the fruits.
Hummingbirds, butterflies, and bats are
examples of a few of the tropical animals that
transport pollen from flower to flower.
The flowers of temperate zone plant
species that are pollinated by animals are usually pollinated by multiple species of generalist pollinators. In contrast, tropical flowering
and are deposited far from the parent tree
when the animal finally defecates. These seeds
then lie in the soil or grow into seedlings
which await proper conditions for growth into
adult plants.
Dr. Dvi
The importance of our knowledge of
seed dispersion has only recently been made
obvious. Interest in regenerating tropical rain
forests cut down for short-term gain such as
cattle ranching is increasing. In Brazil this
practice has been sharply reduced because
the government learned that, without substantial subsidies, raising cattle on extensive rain
forest clearings is uneconomical. Some scienlists have estimated that it takes over a ton of
forest vegetation to convert into a single quar-
ter-pounder hamburger (Uhi and Parker
1989). Without insecticides, pesticides, and
supplemental feed, the low-grade beef raised
on these clearings does not justifr the cost.
However, trying to restore extensively cleared
areas of rain forests has proven to be difficult.
Largely because the soil seed bank has been
destroyed and the effect of normal seed dispersion disrupted, attempts at forest regeneration have had marginal results.
In some forests close to river systems,
for instance, the primary dispersers of seeds
are frugivorous fishes. During flood season,
the trees are inundated by several meters of
water. Should these forests be cleared, the
populations of fishes dependent on the fruits
during flood season also will be decimated.
PrsoD
than are temperate forests. Most temperate
zone aquatic ecologists are segregated from
terrestrial ecologists. They have separate journals, separate meetings, and share theories on
only relatively rare occasions. Most of these
scientists admit that the border between
aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems is artificial,
yet the segregation is maintained. In tropical
systems the boundary between aquatic and
terrestrial systems is even more artificial, and
it is unlikely that either system can be understood without understanding the other.
Limiting resources and nutrient
cycling: In temperate zone forests, water or
nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphates are
factors that frequently limit growth, reproduction, and survival of individuals. Temperate
zone generalizations cannot be applied to
tropical rain forests, however, because they
exhibit different patterns. For instance, nutrients and water are common limiting resources
in temperate zone forests. In intact tropical
forests the canopy is so dense that little sun-
light filters through. Seeds and seedlings
often are not limited by nutrients and water,
but rather by sunlight, which is essential for
photosynthesis. One species of fig (Ficus) has
evolved a remarkable solution to this prob-
Replanting trees may not be sufficient to
either build up the fish dispersers or attract
lem. Its fruits are eaten by monkeys and birds.
These dispersers defecate the seeds high up in
them from a distance. Thus, the forest cannot
be maintained without extensive and expen-
the canopy on another tree, and the fig uses
sive human intervention. In addition, the
absence of trees may irrevocably change the
soil's ability to maintain the trees, even if they
are planted properly.
This example further illustrates how
tropical forests must be perceived differently
the host tree for access to the sunlight. By producing its leaves first, the fig is able to quickly
photosynthesize sufficient chemical energy to
grow its trunk down the trunk of the host tree
and finally grow its roots into the soil.
Although eventually the fig completely strangles the host tree, it has effectively overcome
CuIturi CIshes An Te Future Of TroicI
the light limitation problem.
In temperate zone forests organic
material builds up in the soil to produce
humus and a large reservoir of nutrients.
Rdin
Forest Conservdtioo
our medicine cabinets (many medicines have
been derived from tropical plants), and in our
backyards (most migrant bird species are trop-
ical birds that spend a few months here in
any organic material falling to the foi'est floor
North America). These relationships are not
just symbolic, but rather affect the quality of
our everyday lives. Our consumption patterns
is quickly broken down by the abundant
directly influence the kinds of rain forest
decomposer fungi and bacteria, and has no
products that are marketed. If we buy vanilla
chance to accumulate. Instead of root systems
and Brazil nuts, we use economic force to
maintain topical rain forests, because these
Topical forests, by contrast, are generally so
warm and humid throughout the year that
that penetrate deep into the soil, tropical
trees tend to produce roots that grow laterally
close to the soil surface. This permits the tree
to quickly absorb organic material as it is broken down. Up to 90% of the nutrients in trop-
products come from intact forest. In so doing
we ensure that other forest species are available and enable further investigation of intact
ical forests are in the plant themselves, and
ate zone forests. This is another reason that
However, if we buy tea and black pepper, we
condemn tropical rain forests because these
forests must be completely cut down to satisfy
our economic demand. No one will ever know
whether or not a cure for ovarian cancer was
temperate zone management practices are dif-
destroyed forever when the forests of Sri
ficult to apply to tropical forests. Through
evapotranspiration from leaf surfaces, water
Lanka were cut down to provide us with tea
vapor builds up over the canopy. As this vapor
Although as North Americans our
power to affect the future of rain forests is
tremendous, we cannot produce a positive
the soil is nutrient poor (Proctor 1989).
Rainfall in the tropical forests is generally high compared to that is most temper-
rises it eventually cools and condenses.
Tropical rain forests produce up to 70% of
their own rainfall in this manner (Salati and
Vose 1984). Thus, if extensive areas of tropical
forest are cleared and then burned off to raise
cattle or some alternative crop, most of the
local nutrients and rainfall are removed.
NORTH AMERICAN INTERESTS AND INFLUENCES
The first thing that North Americans
must learn about tropical rain forests is that
they are not a distant part of the world that
affect us only minimally. These forests are on
our kitchen tables (bananas, tea, chicken), in
rain forests for additional useful products.
plantations.
future for rain forests alone. Their future lies
in the cooperative efforts of several cultures:
the local indigenous people, whose knowledge of the forest can provide access to otherwise unknown economic benefit; the national
culture, whose members have unique insight
into solutions fbr problems that elude international observers; anti the dominant international culture. By returning some reasonable
portion of profits gained from economic use
of rain forests, local and national cultures will
percei\e the forests as valuable assets.
III. Ovi
Harvesting forest products economically from
intact forests rather than destroying forests to
harvest monoculture plantations will provide
time and forest to investigate further rational
use and benefit.
This type of cooperative effort must
emphasize the mutual benefit to all cultures.
Education of adults and children so that longterm benefits can be perceived and appreciated is essential. A respect for different social
To accomplish our goal, 11 Peruvian
instructors, including professors and government officials who were biologists, sociolo-
gists, economists, psychologists, and law
enforcement officers, were recruited. Thirty
five local teachers and mayors from each of
the 12 villages on the rivers surrounding the
reserve were invited to participate. We all
boarded a large river launch and spent two
weeks together in a mobile seminar.
systems must also be learned. Finally each cul-
The plan had two parts. First, while
ture must learn to listen to the needs and
moving from site to site along the rivers within
and along the borders of the reserve, we held
appreciate the abilities of the other cultures.
As an example of an intercultural
42
PB1so
effort, in the summer of 1987 I was invited to
participate in an innovative rain forest education and conservation program in Peru. This
program was funded by the World Wildlife
Fund but conceived, organized, and carried
out by Latin Americans. As the only gringo, I
was a token presence. The goal of this twoweek program was to inform and convince the
local residents living on the boundary of the
immense national reserve, Pacaya-Samiria, of
the social and economic importance of forest
conservation.
The Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve
3-5 lectures per day for the participants. The
top deck of the launch served as a classroom
by day, dining room during meals, and a place
to hang hammocks at night.
The lectures covered many topics,
including Peruvian conservation laws, ecology
of tropical forests, fisheries management, economics, pedagogy, and sociology. These for-
ting. Other areas are restricted to scientific
mal presentations exposed participants to a
broad array of pertinent subjects, and provided them with a legal and intellectual background for understanding the overall need to
protect the reserve and use it rationally. This
understanding, together with their considerable enthusiasm, in turn enabled the participants to transmit the message to their neighbors and constituents in their individual villages when they returned home. Informally
the participants also made valuable contacts
among themselves and with the instructors.
They developed a network of contacts that
study. Further, areas that serve as buffer zones
are located between the totally protected areas
and the large human populations living along
the river boundaries of the reserve.
might otherwise have been impossible or have
taken years to establish.
The second part of our approach was
to visit each of the 12 villages on the borders
was established in 1943 to protect the fish
populations of the area. The reserve is the size
of the state of Vermont (3 million hectares),
and is protected by fewer than 10 park guards.
Because it is designated for multiple use, some
areas are open to licensed fishing and tree cut-
Culturdi CIshes Dd The Future Of Tlopicdl Ai
of the reserve. At each site, the students who
Forest COnservdtioo
were from that particular village were in
of their plan. They had forced the local people to identify their problems and demand a
charge of a two-hour long presentation and
solution. The master plan for this effort
open forum to the assembled townspeople or'
the importance of the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve
included direct help from the government in
the formation of cooperatives at each village.
Established as legal units, licenses could be
issued, quotas determined, and financial help
for initial training and equipment could be
provided. Each village was provided with sole
access to that part of the reserve across from
them, and, among the 12 villages, this access
encompassed virtually the complete periphery
of the reserve. No one else was allowed into a
village's assigned area, and they knew their
rights and had their contacts at the ministry.
The villagers intuitively understood why they
could not take more than their quota of palm,
fish, and forest products. They also understood why the central area was untouchable. It
was the reservoir from which young fish and
seeds for new plants would have to come to
replace the products they removed form their
sites. By the time the seminar ended, we had
across the river. They emphasized the economic importance of controlling exploitation
of animal and plant resources. At each locality, the people attending were invited to share
with us their thoughts and experiences with the
reserve. We quickly learned that they were very
well aware of the economic and social impact of
the reserve.
At least one person in each town pas-
sionately expressed both anger and fear
regarding how little they were profiting from
the presence of the reserve across the river.
The reserve was quickly becoming the sole
source of such natural products as fish and
thatching for roofs for hundreds of kilometers
in all directions. One of the greatest frustrations was lack of control of illegal extraction
of natural resources from the reserve. The
local people felt helpless, because they did
not know how licenses were obtained or who
could legally get them. When they witnessed
apparently illegal activities, they did not know
of their rights to stop them nor to whom to
report the infractions. The sustained and
long-term economic benefits of the reserve
were by-passing them and going directly to
markets in the big cities like Iquitos and Lirna.
If the people living on the borders cannot
share economically in the conservation and
rational use of the reserve, their incentive to
participate in its protection will remain small.
Psychologically the leaders of the
mobile seminar had succeeded in this phase
several thousand park guards.
The adults understood and appreciated
the economic incentives to conservation. Any
other approach would likely have met with little
success. At the sanie time, however, the school
teachers would be introducing a conservation
ethic to the children of these villages that went
beyond the purely economic factors that were
the primary motivators of their parents. The
importance of more subtle aspects of forest
conservation, such as aesthetics, diversity, and
long-term ecological ramifications would be
taught to the youth so that they have a broad-
er basis than do their parents upon which to
judge the merits of the reserve.
Di. Dvi
Three cultures worked together to
solve this problem. The international dominant culture provided the funds, but the
national culture used insight unavailable to
the dominant culture to help the local culture perceive and solve its problem. In so
doing all three cultures gained socially,
politically, and economically. Clashes of cul-
ture need not be inevitable, and for the
future of tropical rain forests they cannot be
inevitable.
LITERATURE CITED
Ehrlich, P. R. and E. 0. Wilson. 1991.
Biodiversity studies: science and policy.
Science 253:758-762.
Erwin, T. L. 1982. Tropical forests: their
richness in Coleoptera and other arthropod
species. The Coleopterists' Bulletin 36:74-75.
Gentry, A. H. 1988. Tree species richness of upper Amazonian forests. Proceedings
National Academy of Sciences USA 85:156-159.
Janzen, D. H. 1970. Herbivory and
the number of tree species in tropical forests.
American Naturalist 104:501-528.
Mabberley, D. J. 1992. Tropical Rain
Forest Ecology (second edition). New York:
Chapman and Hall.
Mann, C. C. 1991. Extinction: are
ecologists crying wolf? Science 253:736-738.
Pearson, D. L. and F. Cassola. 1992.
World-wide species richness patterns of tiger
beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae): Indicator
taxon for biodiversity and conservation studies. Conservation Biology 6:376-391.
Proctor, J. (ed.) 1989. Mineral nutrients
in topical forest and savanna ecosystems.
Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Pdrson
Salad, E. and P. D. Vose. 1984. Amazon
basin: a system in equilibrium. Science 225:129-138.
Uhl, C. and G. Parker. 1989. Our
steak in the jungle. BioScience 36:642.
Whitmore, T. C. 1990. An Introduction to
Tropical Rain Forests. Oxford, England:
Glarendon Press.
Wilson, E. 0. (ed.) 1988. Biodiversity.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
':( t4tl
e
rr
C-,
N OUR HIGHLY UIZED
s()(ic1\. we may easily overlook
itically important role
tihit forests have played in the
history and development of the
nation. The single most importlic
£
W Iit In Tile WoiI
v e We Do n e To
tant event in the evolution of the
American landscape as we know
it today was the clearing of
Our ForesIs
forests for agriculture.
A brief overview on
conditions
nEI Uends
crcelij more then
hecdme incresiol clei that old
of U.S. forests
piodches
Assistant
Director, Planning and Inventory,
U.S. Forest Seryice, Washington,
D.C.
o, it
ceritur
eie not sustdiohle. We
hen to viei forests dnd ullidlife,
not
s
ioducts to be mined
ed, but
01
for-
s resources tIit could be
mned over the loo term on
entific basis for both products
eovironmentffl services.
This clearing was essential
to provide food for a rapidly
growing population. Yet forests
were cleared for a wide variety of
products and uses in addition to
agriculture. Wood was virtually
sd-
nd
Oav
McCeBr
the only fuel used in this country for most of
its history. Wood warmed its citizens, pro-
today. Thus, this paper outlines briefly the
duced its iron, and drove its locomotives,
steamboats, and stationary engines.
Lumber, timbers, and other structural prod-
shaped this nation's forests over the years.
ucts were the primary material used in houses,
barns, fences, bridges, and even dams and
locks.
Such products were essential for the
development of rural economies across the
nation, as well as for industry, transportation,
and the building of cities. Further, forests provided habitat for wildlife which was the basis
for lucrative export markets in furs, as well as
an important supplement to the diet of mil-
lions of Americans. In a very real sense,
American foreststhe products derived from
them and the land they occupiedwere the
economic foundation of the nation.
In a spiritual sense, the forests and
the wilderness values it represents have played
an important role in the identity of the
nation. This was expressed in the writings of
Thoreau, Emerson, Marsh, and others, and
was first evidenced politically in the late 1 800s
in efforts to address concerns over wildlife
decimation and forest depletion. Without its
forests, America would have had a decidedly
different history, and would be a decidedly
different place than it is today.
In the past few years, we have seen an
increased interest in all aspects of the environ-
ment. A portion of this interest has focused
on concerns over the condition of the
nation's forests and associated wildlife. An
enlightened perspective on the current condi-
tion of and trends involving forests and
wildlife needs to be based on a general understanding of how they came to be what they are
natural and human influences that have
NATURE AND EXTENT OF NORTH AMERICAN
FORESTS PRIOR TO EUROPEM1 SETrLEMENT
Early European settlers to America
were awed by the ocean of trees which greeted
them. Forests blanketed the entire eastern
one-third of the U.S.from the Atlantic Coast
to the prairies beyond the Mississippi. These
vast forests were a sharp contrast to those of
England and much of the rest of Europe
which had been depleted for fuel and building materials. The original forests covered 1.1
billion acres, or about half of the U.S. land
area (including Alaska).
Today, about one-third of the nation
approximately 737
forested.
This is about 70% of the area that was forested
in 1600. About 310 million acres of forest have
been converted to other usesprimarily to agricultural landssince 1600.
Forests remained the dominant fea-
ture of the landscape in eastern North
America for centuries after initial settlement.
In 1796, almost two centuries after the first
European settlements, a French naturalist vis-
iting the new American nation wrote that,
"The most striking feature (of the country) is
an almost universal forest, starting at the
Atlantic and thickening and enlarging to the
heart of the country." He said that in his travels into America's interior that he "scarcely
passed, for three miles together through a
tract of unwooded or cleared land."
About three-quarters of the nation's
original forest was in the eastern third of the
country. West of the Mississippi, as rainfall
Wt In Te WorI
Kve We Done To Dvi forests?
diminished, forests and woodlands gave way to
vast, treeless prairies and deserts. However, in
mountainous areas where rainfall was sufficient and along the Pacific Coast, extensive
and often magnificent forests developed.
quickly reverted back to forest.
European settlers spoke of the open,
parklike forest that they encountered (a con-
dition created by frequent burning)and of
the frequency of Indian burning. Settlers in
One popular myth is that, prior to
New England reported that the Native
European contact, America was dominated by
Americans burned the woods twice a year. A
general statement can be made that, wherever
impenetrable, relatively uniform ancient
forests that cloaked the landscape in a longterm static balance with the environment. The
reality was quite the contrary. Presettlement
forests were exceedingly dynamicshaped by
a myriad of both natural and human-caused
there were Native Americans, there was fire.
The abundant wildlife that was
reported also gives an indication of the frequency of disturbance. Deer, wild turkeys, and
influences, disturbances, and catastrophic
a variety of game birds abounded. Even elk
and bison, normally associated with the west-
events that had a profound effect on the age,
planet species, and wildlife of the forest envi-
ern prairies, were common in the eastern
forests. Bison were reported as far east as
ronment. Presettlement forests in both the
East and the West were a diverse mosaic of
forest stands whose age, tree species, and
Massachusetts.
wildlife varied widely and reflected the disturbance history of the area.
Further, America's original forests
were strongly influenced, in both the East and
the West, by Native Americans. In the eastern
forests, most Native Americans lived in fixed
villages. Domesticated crops accounted for
half or more of their diet. It was a maize-based
agriculture. Population densities were at least
five times that of the nomadic, hunter/gatherer societies to the north and west. Millions of
acres were cleared for fields. Hundreds of mil-
lions more were burned frequently to
The South was dominated by fire-cre-
ated forestssuch as longleaf pine savannahs
on the Costal Plain and Piedmont. The hardwood forests of the Appalachian Mountains
also were burned frequently by Native
Americans. In Virginia, the Shenandoah
Valleythe area between the Blue Ridge
Mountains and the Alleghenieswas one vast
grass prairie. Native Americans burned the
area annually.
On the western fringe of the forest,
fire-dominated forest types, such as oak and
pine savannahs. covered tens of millions of
acres. These forests were heavily influenced by
fires sweeping in off the western prairies. Fire-
improve game habitat, facilitate travel, reduce
insect pests, remove cover for potential ene-
created prairies extended well into Ohio,
mies, enhance conditions for berries, and
that demonstrates the dominant role fire
drive game. It was a shifting type of agricul-
played in these forests does exist. When farms
ture. Fields and villages were abandoned
when their natural fertility declined, new
finally began to move out onto the prairies
forests were cleared, and the abandoned lands
Pennsylvania and western New York. Evidence
and to cut off prairie fires, millions of acres of
open oak savannahs and even treeless prairies
Doug MdcCIeo1
to the east of these farms became dense woodlands and forests within two decades.
As we see increasing concern over the
need to protect some of our forests in their
"natural" condition, the complex natural and
presettlement human history of U.S. forests
raises equally complex technical and policy
questions over whether to allow wildfire to
waged unrelenting war. It provided cover for
sometimes hostile Indians. Most importantly,
however, the forest occupied potential cropland that could be liberated only after intensive and back-breaking labor with the primitive hand tools of the day.
For the first three centuries of our
history, most Americans were farmers. In
assume its natural role in these areas, or to
seek to replicate presettlement human influ-
1800, more than 90% of the people lived on
the land. Except for a relatively few people
ences. We know that it is virtually impossible
to separate natural from human-caused influ-
engaged in plantation agriculture in the
South, most were subsistence farmers. The
ences in presettlement forests. North predominant view that emerged in the early
American forests have been both occupied
and influenced by humans from the time
1600s, and that continued for almost 300
years, was that the forest was both inex-
these forests advanced northward behind the
haustible and an obstacle to the much pre-
retreating continental glaciers more than
ferred agricultural use of the land.
The nation was much more concerned
8,000 years ago.
about feeding itself than it was over the spiritual
EUROPEAN VIEW OF THE FORESTS
The era of European settlement ushered in a vast increase in the impact of humans
on the forest. The abundance of land and
resources, and the scarcity of labor were a defin-
ing difference between America and Europe,
where the situation was reversed. This difference
affected everything we did, from the stewardship
we applied to our resources (or the lack thereof), to the adoption of the institution of slavery.
value of forests. Forest clearing became a
win/win situation. It liberated cropland and
pasture, while providing fuel, fencing, and
material for building homes, barns, mills, and
factories. Indeed, the fuelwood and potash that
could be made from wood ashes often could be
sold to pay most of the cost of buying the land.
USE OF WOOD FOR FUEL
Energy was the dominant use of wood
The seemingly endless forest was
on a volume basis until well into the late
viewed as a mixed blessing by early European
colonists. It provided an abundant and readily
available source of fuel and building materi-
the volume of wood harvested was for fuel. By
als. It also yielded abundant game, which
remained for decades after settlement as an
important source of food. But the forest was
also habitat for wolves, eastern panthers, and
other predators that found colonial livestock
easy prey and against which the colonists
1800s. In the late 1700s, about two-thirds of
1850, wood still provided over 90% of the
nation's fuel requirements. Domestic heating
and cooking were by far the dominant use of
fuelwood. However, wood was also the primary industrial fuel. Until after the Civil War, virtually all steamboats, railroads, and stationary
engines used wood fuel. The per capita con-
What in The Warl
dave We Done To Our Forests?
sumption of fuelwood averaged over four
U.S. iron was smelted using wood charcoal.
cords per year for most of the 19th Century,
and the volume of fuelwood consumed rose
Virtually every state east of the Mississippi had
a number of iron-making furnaces and forges.
15 times between 1800 and 1900.
In the 1850s, the tonnage of coke iron finally
exceeded that of charcoal iron. Even so, the
tonnage of charcoal iron produced continued
Even before 1800, fuelwood cutting
was depleting the forests around population
centers. In 1759, one visitor described the
area around Philadelphia as "bereft of
forests." In the late 1700s, fuelwood was being
to rise until 1900. Wood was also used as
process heat for breweries, tanneries, salt
evaporation plants, and anywhere industrial
hauled nearly 100 miles to several coastal
towns causing the price to rise beyond the
process heat was necessary.
reach of the poor.
TRANSPORTATION
By the early 1800s, the U.S. was one of
FENCES
Until the middle of the 19th Century,
next to energy, the most important use of
wood on a volume basis was for fences. Fences
were not ornamental. Because labor was
scarce, herding livestock, as had been common in Europe, was generally not practiced.
Instead, hogs, cattle, and other livestock were
turned untended into the woods. Fences were
needed to keep them out of crops and gardens. Construction of fences was second only
to forest clearing in its labor requirements. In
1850, 3.2 million miles of wooden fences
enough to circle the earth over 120 times
existed in the U.S.
EARLY INDUSTRIAL USE OF WOOD
Most mechanical power for textile
mills, grist mills, sawmills, and other mills and
factories was provided by water. However,
most mills were built of wood, the dam in the
river was most likely made of wood, and even
most of the machinery inside the mill was
built of wood, tipped with iron.
The production of iron itself depend-
ed upon wood. Until 1850, the majority of
the largest nations in the world. What tied
such a large group of disparate and often
quarreling states together more than anything
else was a transportation system. America's
forests figured heavily in this task.
The nation's first highways were its
rivers. Wooden keelboats were followed by
steamboats, which proliferated after 1830.
Steamboats were both made of wood and,
until the Civil War, used wood for fuel. In
1840, almost 900,000 cords of wood were sold
for steamboat fuel, or a fifth of all fuelwood
sold.
Railroads followed the steamboats.
After 1850, the railroads began to expand
rapidly. They linked the growing cities and
provided access to the cities from the agricul-
tural and forest land upon which they
depended. Although called the "iron road,"
railroads used far more wood than iron.
Except for the engines and rails, railroads
were made of wood. The cars were wood, the
ties were wood, the fuel was wood until the
Civil War, the bridges and trestles were wood,
and station houses, fences, and telegraph
poles were wood.
Doo
McCIeei
The mileage of U.S. railroads
increased more than 35 times between 1850
and 1910, from less than 10 thousand miles
to more than 350 thousand miles. By the late
1800s, railroads accounted for 20-25% of the
total consumption of timber in the country.
By far the most significant railroad
use of wood on a volume basis was for crossties. Each mile of track required over 2,500
ties. Cross-ties were not treated until after
1900. Because of their rapid deterioration in
contact with the ground, ties had to be
replaced every 5-7 years. Given the mileage of
track in 1910, that would be equivalent to
replacing the ties on over 50,000 miles of
track annually. In 1900, just replacing railroad
ties on a sustained basis required an estimated
15-20 million acres of forest land.
American farmers cleared about 190 million
acres of forest, more than the total amount
that had been cleared in the previous 250 years
of settlement. To put forest clearing during
this period in perspective, the nation's farmers
were clearing forest at an average rate of 13.5
square miles per day every day for 60 years.
INCREASE IN LUMBER PRoDurIoN AFTER 1850
The 19th Century was a period of
rapid population growth. During the century
the U.S. population rose over 14 times
increasing from 5.3 to 76 million people.
The America of the early 1800s was
overwhelmingly a nation of largely self-suffi-
cient farms. However, after 1850 the U.S.
began to restructure from a rural, agrarian
society to one increasingly urban and industri-
Although use of wood for industrial
alized. Between 1850 and 1900, the population of the nation's cities increased at twice
the rate of the general population, and this
purposes and transportation was certainly sig-
caused a profound change in the demands
nificant, especially in the latter half of the
1800s, clearing for agriculture has been the
dominant cause of reduction in forest cover.
Because no improvement was made in crop
yields per acre throughout the 19th and well
the nation placed on its forests.
FA1I CLEARING
into the 20th Century, farm clearing increased
at about the same rate as the growth in population. Between 1850 and 1900, the U.S. population increased over three times, from 23 to
76 million people, while the area of cropland
increased four times, from 76 to 319 million
acres. For every person added to the U.S. population during the 19th Century, farmers were
putting another 3-4 acres of cropland under the
plow. The area of pasture and hayland
increased even more than did that of cropland.
In the 60 years from 1850 to 1910,
In addition to increased resource
demands resulting from the growing cities,
farms were pushing out onto the treeless
prairies. These prairie farms themselves began
to demand large quantities of lumber for
barns, homes, outbuildings, and fences.
Logging and sawmilling increasingly
began to be organized into large-scale indus-
trial operations. The consumers and the
forests upon which they depended for their
natural resources began to be separated by
hundreds of miles.
Lumber production increased dramatically. It rose more than eight times
between 1850 and 1910, from 5.4 to 44.5 billion board feet annually, or more than twice
What In The WorI
ve We Done To Our Forests?
the rate of population growth. Vast areas of
the Midwest, South, and Pacific Coast were
logged, and often relogged. The tree limbs,
pening to much of the nation's woodlands
tops, and other debris that remained after logging were often burned in the belief that the
logged areas could be converted to corpland
increased flooding and watershed damage,
or improved pasture. These uncontrolled
slash fires burned more or less continuously,
and, when weather conditions were right,
sometimes resulted in massive wildfire, property damage, and major loss of human life.
Repeated wildfires also killed residual
trees and seedlings left by logging and created
tens of millions of acres of what came to be
called "cutovers" or "stumplands" that
and wildlife. Fears about future supplies of timber were mixed with apparent implications of
depleted wildlife populations, loss of the beauty of the American landscape, and even the climate. All of these concerns began to call into
question the myth of forest inexhaustibility.
Predictions of an impending "wood
famine" were raised frequently, beginning in
1865 with Frederic Starr. Use of the term
"famine" was an apt one, for wood in its vari-
ous forms was one of the most widespread
and essential materials in both domestic use
remained idle, unstocked or poorly stocked
and industry.
Bernard Fernow, a German forester,
with desirable tree species for extended periods of time.
began to promote the idea that forests are a
WILDLIFE DEPLETION
The nation's wildlife faced many of
the same pressures as did forests. A wide variety of wildlife species, which at the time of set-
tlement had been present in huge numbers,
were severely depleted. The most significant
factors were virtually unrestricted market
hunting of all kinds of wildlife for food, furs,
and feathers (which in the late 1800s were in
great demand for women's hats), as well as
renewable resource that can be managed on a
sustainable basis over the long term. George
Perkins Marsh, who grew up in Vermont in
the 1830s, began to raise concerns about the
adverse effects of farm clearing on watersheds
and other environmental values. In 1864, he
wrote Man and Natwre, which became a catalyst for public concern.
In 1855, Henry David Thoreau retired
to Walden Pond in Massachusetts to reflect on
the intrusion of civilization and to mourn the
loss of America's wild places. Thoreau's was
habitat modification caused by farm clearing,
logging, and massive wildfires. Many species
of songbirds, such as robins and meadowlarks,
were adversely affected in some areas by hunting for food.
one of the earliest voices which began to
A CiL FOR ACTION
tier to test his mettle. He came back trans-
Before the turn of the century, a
growing number of people began to be
formed and became a life-long sportsman and
conservationist. In 1887, Roosevelt founded
the Boone and Crockett Club, which became
increasingly concerned about what was hap-
put a value on "unspoiled" places for
human spiritual renewal in an increasing
urban and artificial society.
Teddy Roosevelt, a well-born but sickly New Yorker, went out to the Western fron-
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a strong and effective advocate for sportsmen.
Its membership was small in number, but
large in influence. More importantly, in 1901
an assassin's bullet propelled Roosevelt into
the Presidency. In that position he had a pro-
found effect on the conservation history of
the nation
The "conservation movement," if it
could be called that, was made up of a disparate group of sportsmen, foresters, concerned citizens, and intellectuals, all concerned about what they saw going on. It was
not an organized movement, in the sense that
the groups strategized to work in concert.
Instead, the movement comprised groups
with related interests which moved more or
less independently, seeking to achieve ends
that had a common theme.
rapid pace of change was a factor
in the public concern. People could clearly
see the changes in the forest landscape within
their lifetime. In 40-50 years, many areas went
from 80% forest to 10% or even less. Two
wildlife species became the symbols of the
deterioration of American wildlife. Bison,
which had covered the plains in the tens of
millions in 1870 were reduced to scattered
designate Forest Reserves out of Public
Domain lands, but made no provision for
their management. The Forest Reserves,
unlike the park preserves, were generally not
tied to the preservation of a nationally significant, unique area. These designations, which
had grown to 40 million acres by 1897, generated much opposition, because it was unclear
how such set-asides would address society's
need for grazing, wood products, and other
resources.
Out of this debate emerged a new
idea, one rooted in the sustainable forest
management concepts practiced in Europe.
Conservation, the notion that forests, wildlife,
and other renewable resources can be managed under scientific principles on a sustainable basis over the long term, increasingly
began to be promoted by professional
foresters, such as Fernow, as well as by
hunter/sportsman's groups concerned about
the depletion of wildlife. As a result of these
efforts, in 1897 Congress finally gave the
Forest Reserves a management mandate, i.e.,
to "preserve and protect the forests," to
"secure favorable conditions of water flows,"
and to "furnish a continuous supply of timber
remnant bands in 15 short years. The passenger pigeon, probably the most abundant bird
in North America, in 1870 had darkened the
skies over much of the Midwest. It was virtual-
for the use and necessities of the citizens of
ly extinct 20 years later in 1890.
dynamic advocacy of Gifford Pinchot, first
Chief of the Forest Service, and his close
Early responses to these concerns
were expressed in setting aside land in protective categories, such as Yosemite in California
(1864), Yellowstone in Wyoming (1872), and
the Adirondack Preserve in New York (1885).
In 1891, Congress authorized the President to
the United States."
The idea of conservation as wise use
received widespread public support under the
friend and mentor, Theodore Roosevelt.
Thus, the Forest Service emerged as a product
of the nation's first conservation movement.
The agency became a major instrument for
the practical application of conservation as
lflh1iIiII1IIitiHTI1IiItLFIIu!IutII41II
the wise use of forest resources. That role
encompassed much more than the management of the National Forests. It also included
leadership in working with the states and private landowners in advocating the protection
of private forest lands was considered and
debated, but ultimately was rejected.
CONDnION OF U.S. FORESTS AND WILDLIFE IN
1990 VS. 1900
and productive management of nonfederal
It is a measure of both the inherent
forest lands, as well as research in forest man-
resilience of our forests and of the success of
the policies that were put in place in response
to public concerns in the early decades of this
century, that forest conditions over much of
the U.S. have improved dramatically since
1900. The following is a snapshot of the forest
agement and improved utilization of wood
products.
POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR FOREST AND
WIIDIiFE CONSERVATION
The policy framework that had
emerged by the 1930s to address these issues
emphasized protection of forests from wildfire
and of wildlife from overharvest, and management of both forests and wildlife under scientific principles. Specific actions focused on:
and wildlife situation that existed in the 1900s,
as contrasted to 1990.
In the early 1900s, wildfire commonly
consumed 40-50 million acres annually, an
area the size of Virginia, West Virginia,
Maryland, and Delaware combined.
(1) promoting and encouraging the protec-
The area consumed by wildfire has
tion of forests, regardless of ownership, from
wildfire, insects, and disease; (2) acquisition
of scientific knowledge on the management of
forests and wildlife, and on the improved utilization of wood products; (3) encouraging
productive management of private forest
lands through tax incentives and technical
and financial assistance; (4) adoption and
enforcement of strong state and federal
been reduced by more than 90%, from 40-50
million acres in the early 1900s to 2-5 million
acres todayeven in bad fire years.
Largely a result of wildfires, perhaps
80 million acres of "cutovers" continued to
remain idle and unstocked or poorly stocked
with desirable tree species.
The cutovers or "stumplands" that
existed in 1900 have long since been reforest-
wildlife conservation laws; and (5) acquisition
ed. Today, many of these areas contain
and management of public lands for both
mature forests. Others have been harvested a
second time and regenerated to young forests.
commodity and amenity uses and values. (See
the Appendix for a further description of this
policy framework.)
A key element of the public policy
framework was strong cooperation among fed-
eral, state, and private sector interests to
achieve common goals. A stronger, more
coercive federal role in the direct regulation
Nationally, the volume of timber
harvested greatly exceeded that of forest
growth.
Nationally, forest growth rates have
exceeded harvest rates since the 1940s, with
each decade generally showing a greater margin of growth over harvest than the one pre-
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ceding. By 1986, the volume of tree growth
nationally exceeded the volume harvested by
37%, and growth was more than 3 1/2 times
that in 1920.
No provision for reforestation was
being made. In fact, no long-term forest man-
the century, America's farmers cleared forests
at the average rate of 13.3 square miles per
day. In the five decades ending in 1900, forest
cover in many areas east of the Mississippi had
agement of any kind was practiced.
been reduced from 60-70% of the land to
20% or even less. Many of the areas being
cleared were on steep slopes, marginal for
Tree planting on all forest ownerships has increased dramatically since World
War II, and was at record levels throughout
the 1980s. Many private forest lands are now
growing crops, and highly erodible.
For the last 70 years there has been
no increase in cropland area. About 1920, for
the first time in American history, the increase
actively managed for tree growing.
in the area of cleared farmland abruptly
Large quantities of wood were left
after logging, sawmills were inefficient, use of
wood in buildings was based on custom, rather
than sound engineering, and huge volumes of
wood were lost to rot and deterioration.
stopped, rather than continuing to rise at the
rate of population growth.* While farm clearing of forests continued after 1920 in some
areas, it was offset by farmland abandonment
and reversion back to forest in others. The stabilization in the area of cleared farmland had
The efficiency of wood utilization
has improved dramatically since 1900. Much
less material is being left in the woods, many
sawmills produce twice or more the usable
lumber and other products per log input they
did in 1900, engineering standards and
designs have reduced the volume of wood
used per square foot of building space, and
preservative treatments have substantially
extended the service life of wood. All of these
have reduced by millions of acres the area of
annual harvest that otherwise would have
occurred.
Large-scale disastrous flooding in
the East was tied to farm clearing and to logging and wildfires.
Eastern watersheds have been reforested. The headwaters of many American rivers are
protected from overharvesting by National
Forests.
Clearing of forests for agriculture
continued at high levels. In the last decade of
an immensely beneficial effect on U.S. forests.
By 1900, many wildfire species,
which formerly were abundant, were severely
depleted or on the brink of extinction.
Examples included game animals, such as
white-tailed deer, wild turkey, pronghorn
antelope, moose, bighorn sheep, and, of
course, bison. Furbearers, especially beaver,
had been eliminated from significant portions
of their ranges. Waterfowl were also severely
impacted. They included wood ducks and several other species of ducks, Canadian geese,
and all manner of plumed wading birds, such
as herons, egrets, and ibises. The passenger
pigeon, perhaps the most abundant bird on
the North American continent, was, for all
intents, extinct in 1900; the heath hen, an
eastern relative of the western prairie chicken,
was also on the brink. The great auk, a flight-
less bird along the Northeast Coast, had
become extinct in 1840.
1TIiIiIiiflHUImflmBtiI41i
Wildlife has been a major conserva-
1800 and 1935, average corn yields in the U.S.
tion success story. Although a number of
species, such as the great auk, passenger
pigeon, heath hen, and several others, did
remained virtually stable at about 25 bushels
per acre. After 1935, average per acre yields
began to increase and resulted in 35 bushels
by 1945, 40 bushels by 1950, and 120 bushels
become extinct, many others which were severe-
ly depleted or even on the brink of extinction
in 1900 have staged remarkable comebacks.
Many species which would likely have been on
the endangered species list, had one existed in
1900, are today abundant. Examples include:
wild turkey; beaver; egrets, herons, and many
other wading birds; many species of shorebirds;
wood ducks, and several other species of ducks;
whistling swans; Rocky Mountain elk, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, black hear, and
by 1988. American farmers now grow as much
food on one acre as it took five acres to grow
in 1920.
FOREST WILDLIFE TODAY
Several species of American forest
wildlife, such as the passenger pigeon, heath
hen, and Carolina parakeet, became extinct as
a result of forest changes and human uses
even white-tailed deer throughout most of its
during this century. A larger number of subspecies and other wildlife populations were
range. Many other species, although not actually on the brink of extinction in 1900, are today
substantially diminished, and some disappeared altogether. However, many species
both more abundant and more widespread
that were poised on the brink of extinction in
than they were in 1900.
1900 have staged remarkable comebacks.
The two primary reasons that the area
of cropland stabilized were that:
Because of actions that were set in motion in
the early decades of this century, many forest
wildlife species are both more abundant and
more widespread than they were in 1900.
1) Rapidly increasing numbers of
motor vehicles and farm tractors made it
unnecessary to continue to raise large num-
bers of draft animals. In 1910, there were
about 50 million horses, mules, and other
draft animals in the U.S. Fully 27% of all crop-
land was devoted to growing food for draft
animals. By 1950, the number of draft animals
had dropped so dramatically, compared to
1910, that the equivalent of some 70 million
acres of cropland had been released to grow
crops for human consumption.
2) After 1935, spurred by the develop-
ment of genetically improved hybrid crops
and by expanded use of chemical fertilizers
and liming, agricultural productivity began to
improve. Yields for corn are typical. Between
The pattern that has emerged since
the 1930s involves a substantial increase in forest wildlife that can tolerate a relatively broad
range of habitat conditions. The numbers and
distribution of the so-called "habitat generalists" have increased dramatically. Fortunately,
most U.S. forest wildlife species are habitat
generalists. One reason may be the natural
dynamics of North American forests and the
frequency of disturbance in the natural
regime.
Some species, particularly large
predators and herbivores such as wolves, elk,
and bison, abundant in North American
forests prior to European settlement, have not
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returned to large areas of their former range.
However, many of these species have populated areas large enough to accommodate their
needs for a large home range. Although many
wildlife species have staged remarkable come-
backs, this does not imply the absence of
problems. Species with specialized habitat
requirements are of increasing concern today.
Examples include:
The red-cockaded woodpecker and
gopher tortoise, which are natives of fire-created southern pine savannas and woodlands.
The Kirtland's warbler, which is
native of young jack pine forests in Michigan.
mature and old-growth forests in
However, some areas have considerably more
forest than existed in 1920. Beginning gradu-
ally in the mid-1800s, marginal agricultural
land in the East and South began to be abandoned as more productive farm lands in the
Midwest were opened up. These areas generally reverted to forest.
The reasons for reversion back to for-
est are complex. Two related factors were
working in concert. The growth of the cities
accelerated the transition of U.S. agriculture
from subsistence to commercial. At the same
time, the nation's progressively improving
transportation system opened up more productive western lands to provide for the grow-
the West.
ing cities. The steep lands, small fields, and
Some forest wildlife species, e.g.,
Kirtland's warbler, require active manage-
less productive lands of the East and southern
Appalachians were unable to compete com-
ment of young forests for their survival. Many
other species, including a wide variety of both
mercially with the lands of the Ohio Valley
and much of the rest of the Midwest. The
game and nongame species, need a mixture
opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 was the first
of forest and forest edge environments. Some,
such as grizzly bears, wolves, elk, and forestinterior birds, need large, contiguous areas of
reversion in the Northeast. Cropland deple-
habitat. Some require old and ecologically
reduction in the need for pasture that result-
diverse forests. Others, e.g., the red-cockaded
ed from declining numbers of draft animals.
woodpecker, although needing mature
The process of farmland reversion
back to forest continued into the 1900s and
was accelerated by the Great Depression.
Under the Resettlement Act, a New Deal
forests, require specific habitat conditions,
such as open savannas and woodlands which
are created by frequent ground fires. Even the
old-growth, Douglas-fir forests which are habitat for the northern spotted owl are subclimax
forest types that will eventually move toward
different forest conditions without occasional,
stand-replacing wildfires.
major step that set the stage for cropland
tion was also a factor in some cases, as was the
program, thousands of farmers in the
Appalachians and elsewhere were relocated
to more productive land. Between 1925
and 1945, almost 20 million acres of abandoned farms and depleted woodlands were
incorporated into the eastern National
THE EASTERN FOREST COMES BACK
Nationally, the U.S. has about the
same area of forests as it did in 1920.
Forests under the Weeks Act. Millions of
additional acres became state parks and
forests.
Whdt In The WorI
Adve We Done To Our Forests?
In many ways, the forest and farmland
landscape of many parts of the Appalachians,
as well as other areas of the East and South,
have come full circle. By the 1960s and '70s,
the pattern of forest, fields, and pastures was
much like it was prior to 1800. In many areas
the rural landscape has taken on an appear-
Increased recreational demands came
at the same time that demand on the nation's
public forests increased for other uses as well.
Such pressures have been felt especially in the
last three decades as conflicts over the use and
management of public lands has intensified.
ance similar to that prior to the American
AMERICAN FORESTS-A TRANSFORMED HERITAGE
Revolution.
Today, our forests represent a substantially transformed legacy, particularly in
comparison to 1600, which most of us understand. But our forests have also been substantially transformed since 1900, and this dimen-
INCREASING DEMANDS FOR NONTIMBER
USES AND VALUES
After World War II, steadily increasing national economic growth provided the
sion is less well understood by most people.
basis for increasing personal income and
The view of humans toward the
leisure time. That, along with the prolifera-
become more urbanized, mobile, and afflu-
nation's forests has changed profoundly over
the years. Although Native Americans viewed
the forest in a spiritual context, they also took
a utilitarian approach. They used and managed the forest to serve their own ends.
European Americans initially viewed
forests as an encumbrance to agriculture, or
as a virtually inexhaustible resource. At first
they used the forestits wildlife, wood prod-
ent, interest grew in setting aside land in
ucts, and landto meet their subsistence
parks, recreation areas, and reserves. In addition, the success of forest conservation practices began to demonstrate the nation's ability
to meet increasing wood product needs from
both private and public lands. Consequently,
the area of forest land set aside for amenity
values in parks, wilderness areas, and similar
needs for food and energy, much as Native
designations under which timber harvest is
Scarcely more than a century ago, it
became increasingly clear that old approaches
tion of automobiles, revolutionized the recre-
ational habits of the American people.
Recreational visits to the National Forests
increased from 27 million in 1950 to 263 million in 1990. This reflected a pattern that was
common to other public lands.
As the nation's population has
prohibited has increased significantly.
Currently, about 34.5 million acres of
Americans had done. Later, the abundant
wealth of the forests was used to build the
homes, cities, and transportation infrastructure of a growing nation, and the lands previously occupied by forests were used to feed a
rapidly growing population.
productive forest landsabout double what
were not sustainable. We began to view forests
and wildlife, not as products to be mined or for-
was set aside in 1960have been so designat-
aged for, but as resources that could be man-
ed. This is an area the size of the state of
aged over the long term on a scientific basis for
Florida.
both products and environmental services.
Douq McCIei
As our population has continued to
understandable. Indeed, these conservationists
urbanize, the principle of forest conservation
for products and services has remained, but its
role and scope have enlarged. A few decades
ago we began to view forests as attractive settings for outdoor recreation and as places for
human spiritual renewal.
were predicting what they felt would likely
occur if past trends continued and no actions
Comparatively recently, we have
were taken to address the concerns they raised.
However, action was taken. New policies were
debated and implemented. History has demonstrated that past public policies, coupled with
the natural resilience of the resource, have gen-
begun to view forests as ecosystems supporting
a complex web of life, of which humans are a
part. Although it is impossible to predict how
our view of forests may change in the future, it
erally served the country well.
is important to understand how they came to
ers, have contributed to the improved condition of our forest and wildlife resources. One
factor involves the basic resilience of the forest
resources of North America in recovering from
disturbance and responding to management.
In most of its past projections of future forest
be what they are today.
LESSONS OF THE PAST
Today, the U.S. has almost four times
the population, living at a substantially higher standard of living, as in 1890. Yet our forests
and wildlife, in most of their major dimensions, are in significantly better condition
today than they were a century ago.
Our forests and wildlife have demonstrated a resilience and responsiveness to management undreamed of by conservationists at
the turn of the century. These leaders were
almost universally pessimistic about the future.
Gifford Pinchot and others predicted an
impending timber famine, coupled with significandy increased wood product prices, and con-
sequent economic hardship and disruption.
Wildlife leaders, such as William T. Hornaday
and others, predicted the imminent extinction
of scores of species. The timber famine never
came. Most species whose extinction was proph-
esied have since recovered; many are even
abundant today.
In their defense, the predictions of
these early conservationists were logical and
In addition to the policy framework
already discussed, other nonpolicy factors,
largely unrecognized by early conservation lead-
growth, the Forest Service has consistently
underestimated the growth that subsequently
occurred. Wildlife specialists have similarly
underestimated the resiliency and rates of
recovery of many species, once protected from
exploitation and placed under management.
Conversion of the energy base from
wood to fossil fuels removed a huge burden
from American forests, particularly as the pop-
ulation continued to grow. Indirectly, use of
fossil fuels in internal combustion engines
substantially reduced pressure to clear forests
for agriculture. Thus, tens of millions of acres
of cropland were released to grow food for
humans, rather than for draft animals.
Petroleum also was the feedstock for fertilizers
and pesticides that substantially increased
agricultural productivity after 1930.
American forests have been one of
many beneficiaries of the remarkable
improvement in agricultural productivity that
area of both forests and cropland as we had in
long time frames and low economic returns
involved in growing trees, the private sector
could not be relied upon to shoulder much of
the burden for producing the nation's wood
once the original forests were harvested. In
1920. This has occurred in spite of the fact
that the U.S. population has more than dou-
addition to watershed protection, this was one
of the rationales for establishing the National
bled since 1920, from 106 to 250 million, and
that U.S. farmers also feed, through exports,
the equivalent of more than 100 million people in other lands. This is a truly remarkable
Forests.
has occurred over the last half century. The
inexorable, three century-long conversion of
the U.S. forests to farmland largely halted in
the 1920s. Today, we have about the same
Just as they had encouraged improved
wood utilization, increasing wood prices
adverse consequences of intensive agricultural
spurred private sector investments in timber
growing. Investments other than for fire protection were not significant until after World
War II, when industrial forest lands began to
practices, such as pesticide and fertilizer
be managed in earnest for tree growing.
runoff, these problems are being addressed
Today, private forests comprise 73% of U.S.
productive forest land, yet supply 80% of the
accomplishment. Although questions have
arisen in the last decade over some of the
and appear manageable. They should not
overshadow the hugh contribution to humanity and the environment that has resulted from
improved agricultural productivity.
In addition to forest resiliency, most
wood volume harvested.
As the condition of U.S. forests
and supply. Real price increases for wood cre-
improved, a central conservation issue at the
turn of the last century, i.e., whether or not
the nation can ensure a sustainable level of
timber products for the economy, has diminished as a national-level concern. Whereas
economic sustainability remains an issue in
ated powerful incentives for more efficient
some areas, concerns over an impending
use for wood, e.g., less left in the woods after
"national famine of wood" are a relic of history. Concerns over forest sustainability have
reemerged of late, but tend to be focused in
such local- and regional-level issues as sus-
conservation leaders did not recognize the
effect that increasing real prices for wood
products would have on both consumption
logging, better utilization by sawmills, and
more efficient use in end-product applications
through improved engineering, protection
from rot through preservative treatment, and
similar measures. Price increases also encouraged use of substitutes, such as steel and concrete, for wood. These private sector responses are the primary reason that wood consumption did not continue to rise after 1910 as it
had in previous decades.
The conventional wisdom at the turn
of the last century was that, as a result of the
tainahility of natural processes, plant and
animal communities, and biodiversity.
CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE
As past issues have been successfully
addressed, new issues have emerged. In recent
years the growing urbanization, affluence, and
mobility of the American population have
caused a virtual revolution in the expectations
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of and demands on U.S. forests. Some of
these are in direct conflict with traditional forest values and uses.
Issues such as protection of remaining old-growth forests in the West, maintaining biological diversity, protecting endangered species, loss of wetlands, use of herbicides in forestry, and the impact that atmospheric pollution may be having on our forests
continue to be hotly debated. Although most
wildlife are in better condition today than a
century ago, clear exceptions exist. Some
species with specialized habitat requirements
remain the focus of concern. The red-cockaded woodpecker in the South and the northern
spotted owl on the West Coast are examples.
the products of its forests and fields than were
the subsistence farmers of America's past.
In the last decade, we have seen the
debate between those advocating the utilitari-
an use and management of forests for commodity products and those wanting to minimize human influences and emphasize ameni-
ty values (particularly on public forests)
become increasingly shrill and divisive. This
conflict existed in the early 1900s and found
focus in the public debates between Gifford
Pinchot and John Muir. As this century draws
to a close and the nation's population has
become increasingly affluent, mobile, and
urbanized, we have seen increasing interest in
the natural process/amenity side of the con-
Declining numbers of some Neotropical
servation spectrum.
migrating birds has raised concerns over forest habitat loss and fragmentation in North
Utilitarian use of the forest for commodities and forest protection for amenity
America as well as in Central and South
and natural values are often viewed as irrecon-
America. These are all issues we must seek to
cilably in conflict. On a personal level, or
when the focus is on an individual parcel of
land, they frequently are. Yet, in a larger
successfully address as demands on the
resources of our planet increase.
One of the most profound changes in
American society in the 20th Century has been
its transition from a rural, agrarian society to
sense and scale, they are compatible; indeed,
they are inextricably linked.
Somewhat ironically, it has been the
an urban, industrialized nation. This change
has been accompanied by a corresponding
physical and psychological separation of its
success of the scientifically based, utilitarian-ori-
people from the land that sustains them.
In a world of farms, forests, and small
at the turn of the century that has, to a very
towns, the linkages between food and fields
dance that has allowed it the capacity, unique to
only a handful of other nations, to decide how
much of John Muir's brand of forest conserva-
and between forests and home and hearth
were clear and sustained by personal experi-
ence. In a world of cities and suburbs, of
ented forest management concepts advocated
by Fernow, Pinchot, and other forestry leaders
large degree, provided society with the abun-
tion is appropriate. The fact that this nation
now has the resource wealth to consider such
offices and air conditioning, those linkages
have become more obscure, and for many
choices is itself a clear and positive sign of the
people, virtually nonexistent. Yet today's
success of its past conservation policies.
urbanized society is no less dependent upon
Nonetheless, there are limits to such
Whdt In The World
ve We Done To Our Forests?
choices. Society remains dependent upon
sweep of American history. Science 204
forests for a wide variety of economic products.
(1979), pp. 1168-74.
Indeed, utilization of forests for products has
never been higher than it is today on a wood
volume basis. Because of this, society's ability to
continue to provide for the amenity side of the
conservation spectrum will, in no small part,
depend upon how much attention is paid to
the production/utilitarian side as well.
Today, the U.S. consumes about as
much wood on a tonnage basis as the combined
total for most other raw materialssteel, plastics,
aluminum, other metals, and cements. Any significant substitution of these other materials for
wood products could involve other environmental consequences. Alternatives to wood in most
applications are both nonrenewable and use
considerably more energy per unit of production
than does wood.
As human population numbers and
resource demands increase, the emerging
challenge for society and its land managers
is to find ways in which both commodity
products and amenity values can be realized over time from the same area of forest.
This is the challenging new focus for the
evolving concept of land stewardship and
forest sustainability.
REFERENCES
The primary sources used in this
paper are as follows:
American Forestry Association. 1990.
Clepper, H. and A. B. Meyer. 1960.
American forestry: 6 decades of growth. Society
of American Foresters. Washington, D.C.
Cronon, W. 1985. Changes in the
Land: Indians, colonists, and the ecology of
New England. New York: Hill and Wang.
Cronon, W. 1991. Nature's metropolis:
Chicago and the Great West. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company.
Denevan, W. M. 1992. The pristine
myth: The landscape of the Americas in 1492.
Annals of the Association of American
Geographers. Vol. 82, No. 3.
Fedkiw, J. 1989. The evolving use and
management of the nation's forests, grasslands,
croplands, and related resources. USDA Forest
Service, General Technical Report RM-175,
September 1989.
Frederick, K. D. and R. A. Sedjo., ed.
1991. America's Renewable Resources: historical trends and current challenges. Washington,
D.C.: Resources for the Future.
Gruell, G. E. 1983. Fire and vegetative
trends in the northern Rockies: interpretations
from 1871-1982 photographs. Intermountain
Forest and Range Experiment Station, General
Technical Report INT-158, USDA Forest
Service, Ogden, Utah. December 1983.
Harper, R.M. 1918. Changes in the for-
est area of New England in three centuries.
Journal of Forestry 16:442-52.
Natural Resources for the 21st Century.
Koch, P. 1991. Wood vs non-wood
Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Botkin, D. 1990. Discordant
Harmonies: A new ecology for the twenty-first
century. New York: Oxford University Press.
Clawson, M. 1979. Forests in the long
materials in U.S. residential construction: some
energy-related international implications.
Working Paper 36. Center for International
Trade in Forest Products. University of
Washington, Seattle, WA.
Dou
MdcCIeer
Olson, S. H. 1971. The Depletion
Myth: a history of railroad use of timber.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
1982. Analysis of the Timber Situation in the
United States, 1952-2030. Forest Resources
University Press.
Perlin, J. 1989. A Forest Journey: the
role of wood in the development of civilizadon. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Report No. 23. USDA Forest Service,
Raup, H. M. 1966. The view from
John Sanderson's farm: a perspective for the
1987. Resource Bulletin PNW-RB-168. USDA
Forest Service, September 1989.
use of land. Journal of Forest History, April.
Rieger, John F. 1986. American
Van Lear, D. H. and T. A. Waidrop.
1989. History, Uses and Effects of Fire in the
Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation.
Norman, Oklahoma: Oklahoma University
Appalachians.
Southeastern Forest
Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service,
Press.
General Technical Report SE-54.
Whitney, G. G. and D. C. Davis. 1986.
Shands, W. E. 1991. The lands
nobody wanted: the legacy of the eastern
national forests. Presented at the symposium
"The Origins and Significance of the National
Forests," University of Montana, Missoula.
June 20-22, 1991.
Smith, B. D. 1989. Origins of agricul-
ture in eastern North America. Science
246(1989): 1566-1571.
December 1982.
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
1989. Forest Statistics of the United States.
Thoreau and the forest history of Concord,
Massachusetts. Journal of Forest History,
April.
Williams, M. 1989. Americans and
their Forests: an historical geography. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
APPENDIX
Steen, Harold K. 1976. The U.S.
Forest Service: A History. Seattle: University
of Washington Press.
Thompson, D. Q. and R. H. Smith.
1970. The forest primeval in the Northeasta
great myth? Proceedings of the Annual Tall
Timbers Fire Ecology Conference
10( 1970) :255-65.
CONSERVATION POLICIES WHICH LED TO
IMPROVED FOREST CONDITIONS
A number of forest policies
emerged as national goals and priorities in
response to public concerns. The success of
those policies depended upon effective
cooperative relationships among federal,
Trefethen, J. B. 1975. An American
crusade for wildlife. New York: Winchester
state, and local governments, as well as pri-
Press and the Boone and Crockett Club.
sector interests. The policies and priorities
vate forest landowners and other private
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1975.
that had the greatest effect on the
Historical Statistics of the United States from
Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial edition,
improved condition of our forests follow.
Focusing on fire suppression, pre-
Part 1. U.S. Department of Commerce,
vention, and public education to protect
Washington, D.C.
the forests;
Establishing and enhancing the profession of forestry, and later of wildlife man-
ing, soil and farm implement testing, and
related activities.
agement, hydrology, and other natural
An additional factor that has had a
resource disciplines, through establishment of
significant positive effect on forest conserva-
accredited natural resource schools, profes-
tion has been the increasing real price of
sional societies, etc.;
wood over the decades. Between 1850 and
1950, the real price of lumber, and of stand-
Improving the art and science of
forest regeneration and management, including research, establishing tree nurseries, and
providing technical and financial assistance to
forest landowners;
Improving the efficiency with which
wood products are utilized in the woods, at
the mill, and in end-product applications.
Such gains are the result of wood utilization
research, its effective application, and the
incentive created by increasing real prices for
forest products. The Forest Service's Forest
Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin,
established in 1910, has been a significant
contributor over the years to expanding the
technical knowledge necessary for improving
the utilization of wood products.
Improving the quality of forest management on private lands by improving economic incentives and removing tax and other
disincentives;
Establishing the Forest Reserves
(later the National Forests) for watershed protection, irrigation, and sustained timber production.
Although not established for forestry
purposes, one policy that nonetheless had a
significant beneficial impact on the nation's
forest resources was the strategic decision
made in USDA in the early decades of this
century to emphasize agricultural research
aimed at increasing crop yields. Prior to that,
USDA focused primarily on statistical report-
ing timber, increased by more than five times,
adjusted for inflation. This has created powerful economic incentives both for growing and
managing forests and for reducing consumption of wood by using it more efficiently. The
power of such economic incentives for conservation and efficient use of the resource by the
private sector was largely unrecognized by
early conservation leaders.
CoNsrRvxl ION POLICIES WHICH LED TO
IMPROVED WILDLIFE C0N'DmoNs
A significant factor in the conservation of the nation's wildlife was the establishment and proliferation in the late 1800s of
politically active sportsmen's organizations.
These groups waged a protracted, and ultimately
successful, war against market hunting. They also
vigorously supported the enforcement of game
laws, seWtaxation to support state game manage-
ment, and acquisition of habitat reserves and
management areas. The policies and other factors that follow had the greatest effect on the
improved condition of U.S. wildlife.
Adopting a variety of strong state and
federal wildlife conservation laws, and establishing the agencies effectively to enforce them. This
game law framework includes the following:
Halting market hunting of wildlife
for meat and most other products, including
feathers (market hunting of furbearers has
continued under state regulation);
00110 McCIBei
Eliminating spring shooting of
waterfowl and other game birds;
State regulation of resident game
and nongame species;
Prohibition under federal law of: a)
hunting of song birds, plume birds, and other
migratory nongame birds, and b) interstate
commerce in wildlife products taken in violation of state law;
Federal regulation of sport hunting
of waterfowl and other migratory game birds;
and
Federal protection of endangered
and threatened species after 1966.
Improving the art and science of
wildlife management.
Establishing professional state fish
and game departments devoted to scientific
wildlife management and game law enforcement.
Improving habitat conditions, especially in the East and South, where millions of
acres of agricultural land have reverted back
to forest.
Reintroducing species into their formerly occupied ranges.
Establishing about 90 million
acres of National Wildlife Refuges and 4
million acres of state wildlife reserves.
Wildlife refuges and reserves in the contiguous 48 states were financed largely by
hunting license fees and taxes on sporting
arms, ammunition, and equipment.
Establishing the National Forest
System:
In the West, National Forests acted
as wildlife reserves by providing protection for
beleaguered populations of many wildlife
species, especially large game, until state and
federal wildlife programs and enforcement
were put in place in the 1930s and beyond.
The National Forests were the source of ani-
mals for a number of later reintroductions
into formerly occupied habitat.
East of the Mississippi, millions of
acres of abandoned and depleted farm and
forest lands became National Forest lands
after 1920. Mter acquisition, feral cattle, dogs,
and goats were eliminated and the land reha-
bilitated. Today these areas provide superb
habitat supporting rich populations of many
wildlife species, some of which had not existed on these lands since before the American
Revolution.
The multiple use mandate of the
191-million acre National Forest System lands
provides for full consideration of wildlife values and objectives in land management decisions. It has also encouraged the development
of highly constructive joint efforts with state
wildlife agencies in the management of
wildlife habitats and populations.
U.S. FOREST AREA
Forests as Percent of U.S. Land Area 1600-1 990
Forest Land
1044 mil.acres, 46%
Forest Land
737 mil.acres, 33°u
Non-Forest Land
1219 mil.acres, 54%
Non-Forest Land
527 mil.acres, 67%
1600
1992
Source. 1992 RPA Assessnreet Update.
U5DA/FS, 5/93
Domestic Production of
Forest Products 1800-1985
Farm Clearing of Forest in The U.S. 1850-1910
By Decade and Major Region
Billions of Cubic Feet
Millions of Acres
20
iSeO
1840
1880
1930
1910
1950
/800
1970
1850-59
/870-79
1860-69
'rFueIwood
Pulp
1880.89
1890.99
1900-09
Decade
Year
Miscetaneous
Lumber
Plywood & Veneer
Eoports/Pslp & Logs
Sooth
North
West
Source. M. Williams, Ameocans and
Their Forests, An Historical Geography, 1989
Source Fredrick & Sedlo, 'The Nations Forest Resources,"
RFF Paper ENR9O-07, 1/90
U.S. Crop & Forest Land Area 1850-1 980
Cropland vs. U.S. Population 1800-1990
Millions of Acres
Millions of People
1000
300
800
250
600
C
.2 208
Millions of Acres
1200
/000
to
800
i0
408
0
'0
150
600
0
200
1850
(/7
1870
1890
1910
1930
950
100
400
50
200
1570
Year
CroplandForestlandEstimatedI
1800
1940
1880
1920
1960
Year
US Population
Sosrce.RPA Technical Report RM-175,
USDA/FS. 9/89
a
Soorce' J. Fedkiw, GTR FtM'175
USDA/FS, 9/89
Area of Cropland
1990
llov
McCIeer
By Rural/Urban 1790-1988
U.S. Population
U.S. Wildfire Trends Area Burned 1930-1989
Millions of Acres
Millions of People
300
60
250
50
200!
40
150
30
ioo1
20
to
1790 1810 1830 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1988
Rural Population
0
1930
Year
1940
1960
1960
1970
1980
Year
urban Population
Source: Wildfire Statistics. U5DA.FS
Source. U S. Bureau of Census Figures
Tree Planting in the United States
The Eastern Forest Comes Back
Trends in Eastern Forestland 1850-1980
Millions of Acres
Percent of Land in Forest
4.0
6S
too
3.0
Furrrrors & Other Private
2.0
t.0
Forest Industry
Other Public
National Forests
t9SO
t960
t970
1980
iii1
Vermont
Source. Annual Tree Planting NOtes." USDA/FS
Billions of Cubic Feet Per Year
1952
1962
Maine
t9801
Source: J. Barrett, Regional Sihracrulture of the Uo,feic States. t980
U.S. Timber Growth and Removals 1920 1986
t933
Cvnn, Mass. & RI
[d.t 800s
Year
1920
N. Hampshire
State
1990
Trends in Net Forest Growth Per Acre
by Major Owner 1952 1987
Cubic Feet/Acre/Year
1970
1976
1986
National Forests
Other Public Forest Isdustry Other Private All Ownerships
Ownership
1 Net Growth
Removals
1952
t962
Sources: PNW-RB-t68: FRR No. 23.12182:
t933 Copeland Reporr, t920 Capper Report:
(all USDA'FS), RFF Paper ENR9O.07. t190.
Source: Forest Statistics of the U.S., 1987,
PNW.RBtb8, USDNFS. 9/89
1970
t977
t987j
Trends in U.S. Standing Timber Volume Per Acre
All Owners, by Region 1952 1986
Consumption of Industrial Raw Materials
Wood Products, Cement, Metals & Plastics
U.S. Totals, Percent by Weight 1987
Average Volume/Acre (Cubic Feet
Plastics,
6%
Softwoods,
37%
All Other Metals,
1%
Cements,
20%
Copper, 1%
North
L1952
Rocky Mtns
South
1962
1970
Pucitic coast
1977
Hardwoods,
10%
1987
.-__L.L_-
Steel, 23%
Aluminum!
Bauxite, 2%
Source: J,L Bowyer. U ot Minnesota
Source: Forest Statistics 01 the U.S.. t 987,
PNW.RB168. USOAJFS, 9/89.
Consumption of Energy for Industrial Raw Materials
Wood Products (Excluding Paper Products), Cement, Metals & Plastics
Percent of Energy Consumed 1988
9:,
PlaStics,
All Other
t4%
Metals. t3%
Lumber & Wood Products
Lumber & Wood
j....:'cerrznts.
,1,
Plastics. tS%
All Other
Aluum
cements, 8%
Alumonunr 6%
Steel. 48%
Steel,
Net Energy Consumption
(Total Minus By-Product Energy Inputs)
Total Energy Consumption
Source. Manutacturing Energy consumption Survey. 5/91
Oepartrrrent 01 Energy, Energy Intormation Administration. Table 1 and Table 13 (1988)
Trends in U.S. Whitetail Deer Populations
Trends in U.S. Wild Turkey Populations
1930-1990
1900-1990
Wild Turkey (Millions)
Whitetail Deer (Millions)
20
1111
to
0
0
r
1930
1940
1950
1960
t970
1980
1990
1900
1910
1925
1930
1940
Year
Note Since not all Stales are included in the data, population numbers totlect
trends. raiher than absolute numbers. 8ased on chapter 8. "Wildlile" by Jack Ward
Thomas, rem Natural Resources fo, the 2tot cenru,y, AFA, t990
1950
Year
Source' National Wild Turkey Federation
1960
1970
1980
1980
Dov
MdcCIeer
Trends in U.S. Elk Populations
Trends in U.S. Pronghorn Populations
1910- 1990
1930-1990
Elk (Thousands)
Pronghorns (Thousands)
600
500
400
300
200
100
930
t940
t950
1960
1970
1980
1990
1910
1930
1920
1940
Year
1950
1960
1970
1980
Year
Source: A. Christensen, USDA/FS,
Based on data from Elh of North Amenca
Note: Since not all States are included in the data, population numbers reflect
trends, rather than absolute numbers. Based on Chapter 8. Wildlife by Jack
Ward Thomas, from Natural Resources for the 2tst Century, AFA. 1990,
National Forest Outdoor Recreational Use
1925-1990
Trends In Reserved Productive Forestland
By Region, 1962-1986
Millions of Visits
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
North
South
Rocky Mts.
Pacific Coast
Year
t962
1970
1977
t987JJ
Source: usDNporest Service
Source: APA Assessment Documents
U.S. Timberland Area & Timber Harvest
By Major Owner 1986
Forest Industry
Other Public
Forest Industry
31°/
er Public
7%
thNational
Forest
18%
Other Private
57%
Forest
14%
Other Private
49%
Timberland Area
Soarce:FRP No.23, usroojForesi Service
Timber Harvest Volume
1990
.
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OR. MAR8ARET SUONNON
Cl)
0
U-0
0
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A SPECIAL PLEASURE
fur in to be here. Not only do
II.
1
I count among my friends
Fa ie s 1
II
Fe m
many of the people who are on
Cd re.
11118 t
TIi 00111
IJ f
the faculty here, but also students who are here that I have
Forest Moemeot
known from other places. It feels
very good to be among friends. I
By
comment on that because I'd
DR. MARGARET SHANNON,
Corkery
Professor of Forest Resources,
Associate Professor of Forest Policy
& Law, College of Forest Resources,
University of Washington, Seattle,
like you to remember I feel I'm
An overriffihig message here from the
feminisrs peisective is, t times ifihen
Washington
things seem the most ohlective, neutiffi,
emiiicffl, theij re diso IikeI11 to he
the most oiessive.
among friends for the purposes
of this talk.
When the committee
asked me to come and talk and
provide a different perspective, I
said, "What do you have in
mind?" and Norm Johnson said,
"Well, maybe you could just tell
us about how things would be
different if women were in
charge."
Dr. Mrgiet Sdnoon
I thought about that and I said, "Well,
let's put it a little differently." So, my task
today is to provide a different perspective.
However, it is a great challenge for me to do
this. And the reason for the challenge is that
many of the arenas that I have been working
in are quite separated from each other.
INFLUENCES SI1pING MY PERSPECTIVE
I've been working in the area of femifist theory and feminist studies for some time.
My interest came from trying to understand
my own experience over the last 20 years as a
professional who, when I first wanted to go to
work for the Forest Service as a summer sea-
sonal, could not work in the woods because
women weren't allowed prior to 1972. By
allowed, I mean to be on the ground doing
things like work on trail crews or fire crews. Yet,
by doing a summer of clerical work, I was
allowed to be a fire tower lookout for the
Forest Service, which I continued for six summers while I was in school. In these same years,
I became very interested in forestry as an
undergraduate in Montana. These were the
times that the clearcutting controversy was rag-
ing. My father was one of the authors of the
Bitterroot Report by the Select Committee of
University of Montana Faculty, one of the origi-
nal committees that evaluated and critiqued
timber management practices. For those of you
who knew my Dad, you will appreciate that this
was a topic of lively household discussion.
Feminist theory was also a topic of professional interest to me, because as a social scientist interested in forest management, it was
very hard to find a place. Although the importance of society and social values in forestry is
clearly recognized, it is still very hard to be a
social scientist in forestry and to be valued for
contributing a necessary perspective for the
practice of forestry. Beyond simply being a
social scientist, given the mythological connections to swashbucklers like Gifford Pinchot
or others who endured the hardships of outdoor life, taking a feminist perspective may
seem like sissy stuff.
One purpose of this talk will be to
provide some insight into what feminist theory and feminist methodology can offer to forest management and policy.
The title of this talk illustrates two
potential contributions of feminist theory. First,
feminist theory can be used to develop a new
substantive grounding for enduring forest management - Forest Care. In contrast to stewardship, which locates responsibility in
forest care requires community. It requires
community in the sense that there has to be
some kind of empathy in order for there to be a
caring relationship. Care by individuals, taken
singly, is simply self-interest, or as the utilitarian
would argue, the avoidance of pain. Second,
feminist theory offorest management was to indicate
that a whole new way of thinking was necessary,
built from different forms of knowledge and
with a different viewpoint on history. One cannot move toward Forest Care simply by making
incremental improvements at the margins of
current practice.
WHY FEMINIST THEORY AND EPISTEMOLOGY?
Now I suspect for most of you, you're
still wondering what is a feminist theoretic
approach. Let me outline a few elements of it
which are pertinent to this talk.
forest CdIe: R
Feminist Theor
One of the primary assumptions in
feminist methodology and feminist theory is
of Foiast Mdndement
objective, as if that simply is the way the world
sion of women's leadership: are women particularly well-suited to the special aspects of
the leadership role, and are there elements
that might come from women's knowledge
useful to others in leadership roles? Beyond
is - are actually structures of power. They
responding to the questions posed to me,
are created. They are created as we think and
there is another reason to discuss leadership.
Like the idea of Forest Care, leadership is a
that the realities we see - as if they were obvi-
ous, as if they were neutral, as if they were
as we live. They're created by history. As prod-
ucts of human creation, our understandings
of ourselves, our society, our world, and, of
course, our forests are always partial. It is this
partiality, and the reasons for it, that are the
central focus of feminist theory and method.
The primary purpose of feminist
research is to illuminate what is missing. If
there is a particular agenda to feminist theory,
it is to illuminate the chronology of womenIs
roles and the voices that have been lost over
time due to lack of attention or purposive
exclusion from the dominant view of history.
Feminist methodology is designed to illumi-
nate the structures and sources of power
which lead to the dominant forms of know!edge. Thus, feminist theory and methodology
quality of a community. One cannot stand
alone and be a leader.
To begin this talk, I will discuss what
kinds of epistemology might be most useful to
understand the forces that shape this world
we take for granted. I will use the separation
of the forest from the everyday lives of people
as an illustration of how our conception of a
"normal forest" reflects a particular concep-
tion of the relationship of the forest to the
economy, not the household. Rather than
discuss in detail the categories that shape
our understanding of what a "forest" is or
what "forest resources" are, I will look at
another arena - war - and illustrate how
our conception of war is partial and specifi-
are particularly well-suited to the task of
cally ignores the contribution of women.
revealing the ways the everyday world and our
everyday assumptions about that world are the
creation of those wielding power. In the case
of forest management, the wielders of power
are the scientists, managers, owners, and others who control access to knowledge-making
The reason to take up war is to connect it to
fundamental political theories which separate the public and private realm, and relegate women to the private realm. My argument will be that the relegation of women to
the private realm and of forests to the public
and using. The historic exclusion of women
from these ranks is what lead Norm Johnson
realm severed the connection of women's
to ask me, "What would things be like of
To not disappoint Norm too much, I
will conclude this talk with a discussion of
leadership, and in particular, women's leader-
of forests." Thus, the conception of Forest
Care is to reunite women's knowledge with
our common understanding of what a forest
is and it's value. The discussion in the final
section of women's leadership is to link the
ship styles. Two questions arise from a discus-
idea of Forest Care with new forms of action
women were in charge?"
knowledge of forests from the "management
Dr. Mirel Shdnno
that rely on different kinds of knowledge,
sure of their worth? Such questions are at the
and thus value women's ways of knowing and
women as creative knowers.
level of epistemology: what counts as knowledge.
Included in what counts as knowledge is who
can be knowers. To take a feminist approach, we
THE PROBLEM OF FOREST MANAGEMENT
To begin this critique, we must first ask
not only whose problem is forest management,
but also who gets to define the problem of forest management. Presumably you wonder what
I could be talking about The "problem" of for-
est management is obvious. It is to provide
wood for society, to provide habitat for animals,
to provide respite from industrial society, and
so forth. The primary contribution of the feminist theoretical perspective is to teach us that it
is exactly when a problem seems the most
objective, the most neutral, the most empirically-based, that it is the most blind to the perspec-
tive of the viewer, the most inclined to have
been shaped by powerful bias, to overlook
other forms of knowledge, and to be understood based on limited acceptance of subjec-
must critique both the fundamental concepts,
like what are forest resources, as creations of
power as well as the processes of knowing as
exercises of power by those who hold the power
to be knowers.
The richness of a feminist approach
comes from illuminating things that are very
hard to see, especially because those in power
have spent a lot of energy making sure they
are invisible. And that's precisely the issue
herethat theories are constructed to overlook some aspects of life in order to simplify
so that we can see a few things well. Sociology,
for example, has focused on public, official,
visible, and dramatic events, and thus has not
looked at private, unofficial, supportive, less
dramatic, or invisible events. Feminist sociolo-
gists are working to fill these gaps in knowl-
tive knowledge. It is at times when things
edge, by studying, for example, the social
seem the most objective, neutral, and empiri-
organization of housework and nutrition.
cal, that they're also likely to be the most
Scientific knowledge about forests,
like modern science in general, assumes that
nature is governed by universal, timeless and
oppressive.
In scientific research, we distinguish
between method, methodology, and epistemology. Both a choice of methodology or specific techniques and methods rely on a conception of what kind of knowledge is pertinent to addressing the question at hand. For
example, to assess the values of the forest
resources, one might inventory the resources wood, water, wildlife, forage, etc. - and assign
them values based on what users are willing to
pay or give up for these resources. But are
these things the only kind of "resources" in
forests, and is exchange value a sufficient mea-
simple laws which can be understood by tech-
nicians in the same manner as they understand the workings of machines (Banuri and
Marglin 1993:19). The distinguishing characteristics of modern scientific knowledge are its
disembeddedness from context, its universal
application to all contexts, its separation from
community, separation of the knower from
the known, all leading to both a radical individualism and pure instrumentalism.
In practice, this means that forests
have been defined based on characteristics
Forest Cdre:
A Feminist The a r
supporting human uses for specific things
which are assumed to be always and everywhere the same. Forest resources are assumed
to be objective characteristics of forests which
are everywhere and always present, whether
used or not. For example, while the specific
species of tree varies by place and use, the
resource "wood or fiber" is a category of forest
resource which all forests are assumed to be
capable of supplying. As a result, forestry is
based on a concept of forests which assumes a
single society. In other words, no matter who
you are - man or woman, ethnic heritage, or
social class
the definition of what are forest
resources is the same for you as for anyone else.
of Forest Mdodg e
men t
look historically to the story of forests and for-
est management, and see how the definition
of a forest served the growth and development of modern, industrial social and economic structures. Second, we can compare
the partiality of modern forest management
with other aspects of society, and see if we can
identif' what elements or experiences are sys-
tematically missing which are similar to the
missing knowledge in forestry. The next two
sections take up these two approaches and
provide an glimpse of the contribution a feminist approach can make towards reconceptual-
izing forest management in terms of Forest
Care. As expressed in my introduction, this
Yet, it is clear that differently situated
individuals experience society differently. Thus,
for forests, it is unlikely that there categories of
forest resources that anywhere and always are
paper can do little more than outline the
direction of argument and inspire further
the same. Rather, there are many forests,
theory of forest management which
since they are experienced by many different
people in many different places who recognize, use, and value many different elements
of the forest. Thus, in contrast to modern scientific forestry, there is also forest knowledge
which is embedded in the locality of the place,
located within a community of knowers, not
separable from the act of knowing, and thus
recognizes both the centrality of location and
of the community of knowers embedded in
that place.
less easily transformed into instrumental
knowledge in the service of particular objectives or values (Id: 1). This form of knowledge
is often called "indigenous knowledge," or
"local knowledge," or because women are fre-
quently the users of the forest products and
services, "women's knowledge."
A feminist methodology offers several
approaches to discussing the contrast between
these systems of knowledge and the implications for a theory of forest care. First, we can
research and study on the part of those commit-
ted to a more inclusive forestry and to a new
FORESTS AND FOREST Wop.x
To understand the origins of the
modem problem underlying the development
of scientific forest management, we need to
take a look at the past. I recommend you read
one of my favorite books on this subject. It's
called A Forest's Journey: The History of
Civilization from the Perspective of Wood (1990)
by John Perlin. Perlin traces the evolution of
society and social institutions from the
changes in the forests and the shifts in what
are defined as forest resources.
Clive Ponting, in A Green Historj of the
World (1991), also points to the changes in
forests and forest knowledge as cities and
Or. Mrüre SDoOn
trade emerged as the dominant world patterns. "In a great variety of combinations
humans, animals, water and wind provided
the bulk of the world's power until well into
the nineteenth century. The world's main
source of fuel throughout this period was
United States' fuel supplies and half of the
nationIs iron was still produced using char-
wood, and apart from animal dung there was
no real substitute. Wood had many advantages
(pages 277-284)
coal. ... Not until the mid-1880s did coal
become the principal source of energy in
the United States - when its readily available wood supplies were largely exhausted."
John Perlin's book documents in
- it was easy to collect, readily available,
detail this general story as well. His primary
burned well when dried and, in many cases, it
was free. The problem was that wood was in
great demand. Although some requirements
message is that the forests fell in front of
advancing societies which used them for
trade, fuel, war, and building. Indeed, the
could be met by other methods short of impetus for colonization and exploration by
felling whole forests (such as coppicing), most Europeans came more from the need for
could not, and little attention seems to have
been paid to treating wood as a renewable
wood than from a search for gold! In the face
source while supplies seemed virtually inexhaustible. Forests were destroyed not just to
provide more land for agriculture but also for
societies, the claims of forest dwelling people
wood for fuel and timber. It was used in
housebuilding and construction work of all
kinds (including fortifications and bridges),
in industry to make casks, vats and machinery,
in shipbuilding, and, in the form of charcoal,
as the primary fuel for industries such as iron
smelting, brewing, glass making and brick
production. A moderate sized house in
medieval England required a dozen oaks to be
cut down, and in the fourteenth century work
on Windsor Castle resulted in the felling of
over 4,000 oaks in ten years. ... Once industrial uses became important there was a big step
up in demand for wood and charcoal. ... In
the United States in the nineteenth century an
of demands for wood for expanding urban
were disregarded and, of course, generally
they were overrun or eliminated. Today, when
hearing this rendition of history, heads nod in
sympathy but shoulders shrug in acceptance
of its inevitability. In the international arena,
however, people are not so complacent; many
have not accepted the inevitability of the loss
of their forests to the continued onslaught of
industrial society. The history of Europe and
the United States is replete with examples of
efforts to contain the destruction of forests for
their wood and to hold forests in place for
their protection values as well as their use values. Given the centrality of forests to the lives
of people, it is difficult not to wonder why
efforts to contain the felling of forests across
great areas of land continued for so long and
average blast furnace accounted for the destruction of about 250 acres of woodland every year
and the Hopewell furnace of Pennsylvania was
using up as much as 750 acres a year. ... In 1850
with so little effective control.
A look at forestry and forest management can point us toward some of the answers
wood still accounted for 90 percent of the
practice extends back 3000 years in China as
to this question. While forestry as a social
foiest Care: R Fminis Thor
we are always reminded by Jeff Romm at
Berkeley, forestry as practiced in the United
States today reflects most directly the history
of Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain and
France over the past five hundred years.
Gifford Pinchot, encouraged by his father to
consider forestry as a career, traveled around
Europe in 1870 to look at forestry and see
what foresters did. What he saw reflected the
very history Perlin and Ponting outline, for
forestry had already been separated from the
everyday uses of household economies. This
separation led to a segregation in who did forest work. Pinchot saw men doing forest work.
He saw men doing logging, felling, and bucking. He saw men doing forest administration
and management. The great impediments to
forestry, according to the male foresters he
talked to, were all
people
(often women and children) living near the
forests had the right to maintain - like grazing
livestock, gathering firewood, and collecting
forest products like truffles and mushrooms.
Pinchot and future American foresters
felt fortunate that many of the vast forests of
the United States did not have protected servitudes like were found in Europe. Servitudes
are sets of rights to use resources of the forests
that are not easily severed, like rights to grazing, rights to collect fuelwood, rights to walk
in the forest, rights to have fodder available to
grazing animals, and so forth. From the standpoint of forest management for wood production, these servitudes encumbered managerial
prerogatives on many of the forest lands.
Let me return to feminist theory and
develop a different perspective on forestry
and forest management; a perspective that
can help us begin to dissect and deconstruct
of Foist Mouemeot
the nature of the problem of forests and forest management. We can begin by looking at
the definition of the problem and trying to
reveal who is defining the problem. In feminist research, we look especially to find when
women are active agents as well as creative
knowers who make and use knowledge. In
addition, in the case of forest management we
must look both to different ways of defining
the "problem" of forest management, as well
as how a different problem might both derive
from and draw upon different kinds and
sources of knowledge.
In forest management, little time is
spent critiquing the received and accepted
"problem of forest management." All assume
that it is clear and empirically accurate, that
forests can provide multiple products over
supplies of
time, that
forest resources are the obvious goal of forest
management, and that when some resources
must give way to others their commercial
value determines which resources are most
important. This all too familiar conception of
forest management completely ignores the
perspective of women and the kinds of values
and knowledge that women's lives might contribute to understanding the nature of forests
and the values of forests.
Written in 1850, Rural Hours, by
Susan Fenimore Cooper (daughter of James
Feriimore Cooper) was widely read and in
print for forty years. In it, she writes, "Of the
infinite variety of fruits which spring from the
bosom of the earth, the trees of the wood are
the greatest in dignity. Of all the works of the
creation which know the changes of life and
death, the trees of the forest have the longest
existence. Of all the objects which crown the
Dr. MdrOdret ShdDOD
gray earth, the woods preserve unchanged,
throughout the greatest reach of time, their
native character: the works of man are ever
varying their aspect; his towns and his fields
alike reflect the unstable options, the fickle
wills and fancies of each passing generation;
but the forests on his borders remain today
the same as they were ages of years since. Old
as the everlasting hills, during the thousands
of seasons they have put forth and laid down
their verdure in calm obedience to the decree
which first bade them cover the ruins of the
Deluge" (as quoted in Anderson 1991: 69).
The enduring nature of the forest made it a
touchstone for stability in contrast to the
works of human society.
Such expressions are found elsewhere
in women's writing and also in their poetry. For
example, in "Breaklight," a poem written in
1974 by Lucille Clifton, an African-American
poet raised in upstate New York, points to the
ability to speak the language of the forest.
light keeps on breaking.
i keep knowing
the language of other nations.
i keep hearing
tree talk
water words
and i keep knowing what they mean
and light just keeps on breaking.
last night
the fears of my mother came
knocking and when i
opened the door
they tried to explain themselves
and i understood
everything they said.
(Anderson 1991:8-9)
Such conceptions of the forest stand
in stark contrast to the usual language of forest management. Indeed, I would argue, the
main purpose of the language of forestry and
forest management is to negate the concepts
and knowledge expressed in both selections
quoted above. For as long as the knowledge
of the forest is embedded in the ability of the
knower to "speak the language of the forest,"
it is difficult to segment it from the knower and
access it though non-experiential modes of
learning. Thus, it is impossible to characterize
forests based on abstracted universal principles.
The arguments found in the critiques
of scientific, technical forestry in the international literature today turn on exactly this distinction. It is not that science cannot be useful
in illuminating the processes of the forest
ecosystem, it is that knowledge must be placed
in context with local knowledge about the for-
est. Local knowledge is bound by time and
space, by contextual and moral factors
(Ibid:13). Local knowledge interlinks different realms of experience, and thus is much
more accessible than technical knowledge
which derives from principles abstracted from
experience and perceived to be universal
properties of forest ecosystems.
It is not a new argument to show the
connection between science, instrumental
rationality, economic growth, and a colonial
mentality towards people and forests. It is
important to begin with this set of connections, however, before adding a feminist critique to it. The critical perspective on abstracted science and reliance on technical knowledge
derived from it, on the domination of local people by the sweep of colonizing efforts by industrializing economies, and on the paradigm of
Forest Care: A Feminist 1heor
economic growth itself do not necessarily link
women or women's knowledge to the critique.
In the case of forestry it is essential to
link women and women's knowledge to this
broader critical perspective. First, from a local
use perspective, women use the forest in ways
and for things not usually considered "forest
resources" for the purposes of forest management. Second, from an epistemological perspective, women's knowledge is disconnected
from the body of scientific knowledge about
forests, and women as active knowers are discouraged from drawing upon women's knowledge - they must learn the language of scientific forestry developed by men in support of
felling the forests to create an industrial econ-
omy! The separation of women from the
economy outside of the locality and the segre-
of Forest
Maemeot
WOMEN AND WAR: A REVOLUTION
It is important to dissect the ways in
which a social order simply creates its own
inevitability. This is what Catherine MacKinnon,
one of the most pre-eminent legal feminist
scholars in the country, argues when she says
that when law most closely conforms to precedent, to fact, to legislative intent, it most closely
reinforces male norms and it precludes ques-
tioning of their content as having a point of
view. Problem definitions always have a point of
view, and it is incumbent upon us to ask, "What
kind of point of view might it have?" For example, let me take on a familiar event in American
history
the Revolutionary War.
The Revolutionary War was a strongly
defining experience in the context of this
nation and our culture. It was intended to be
gation of women into the private realms of
transformative. It was intended to throw out
society and outside of public life together
old political models and to create new modensure that women and women's knowledge
will neither inform nor constrain forest management and forestry.
Before completing a critique of forest
management, I think that I may need to show
you what I mean by segregating women from
both public life, and therefore a voice in gov-
ernance, and from the larger economy. In
industrial societies, political voice and economic voice are inextricably linked in property
ownership. To provide a brief glimpse into how
women have been excluded from these realms
at a time and place when knowledge about
forests and forestry was central to the develop-
els. It was intended to create virtuous citizens
who would be capable of self-government.
There was a clear sense among people in those revolutionary times that they were
engaged in a transformative act. However,
after the war, the many kinds of contributions
that women made to that war, (as they have
made to all wars), were quickly forgotten.
Where in your history books did you read
about the events that happened prior to the
Boston Tea Party when the women of Boston
organized the boycott of British tea? Did you
know that by the time the men went onto the
British ship that held the tea - the reason tea
was still onboard was because women were not
ment of the Constitutional framework of the
United States - thereby creating the office of
citizen - and the development of a national
buying tea from the shops in Boston? The
women waged an effective boycott. Did you
economy, I will turn to the Revolutionary War
period and the 19th century.
read that in your history book? No, probably
not. Neither did I.
Eli. M1gdrt SnnoD
War is generally pictured as the ultimate all-male domain. The maintenance of
the purity of this domain has extended to subordinated ethnic groups, races, even lifestyles.
Nevertheless, the reality of war is quite different. Listen, for example, to this description of
tion of household manufactures. Their work
on farms and in businesses in their husbands'
the Hessian army after the surrender of
at what they saw as wartime price-gouging,
Burgoyne in the Revolutionary War:
forced storekeepers to charge just prices.
During and after the war, women also took
'Great numbers of women, who
absences was a vital and obvious contribution.
Women's participation also took less conventional forms. Edward Countryman recounted
instances in which groups of women, angered
seemed to be the beasts of burden, having a
bushel basket on their back, by which they
were bent double, the contents seemed to be
Pots and Kettles, various sorts of Furniture,
part in urban crowd actions, organized petition campaigns, and formed groups to help
children peeping thro' gridirons and other
Whatever their purposes, all of these activities
utensils, some very young infants who were
were congruent with women's identification
born on the road, the women in bare feet,
with the home, family, and community"
cloathd in dirty raggs, such effluvia filld the
air while they were passing, had they not been
(Baker 1984:630-1).
smoking all the time, I should have been
political participation may be recognition that
the public and private spheres were merged in
their activities. The radical separation of public and private spheres followed from the legacy of Great Britain, and was continued in the
apprehensive of being contaminated by them"
(Kerber 1980).
Women played major, not minor sup-
porting roles, in the colonies and during the
Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War
has drawn special attention because its purpose was transformative; it aimed to replace
distant, authoritarian power with close, republican self-governance. To this end, new institu-
tions were created, new political theories
invented, new values articulated, and through
it all women played an important role. Yet,
their ultimate political position left married
women "civilly dead," children under the
absolute authority of the father, and women
as citizens of lesser political standing.
'Despite their formal prepolitical sta-
tus, women participated in the Revolution.
They were central to the success of boycotts of
imported products and, later, to the produc-
soldiers and widows. Some even met with leg-
islature to press for individual demands.
The key to understanding women's
Constitution partly due to the unfortunate
decision to adopt the controversial, and draconian summary of British common law by
Blackstone to stand as precedent in the U.S.
Whereas in the colonies women had enjoyed
political rights and had participated in politics,
the Constitution and the newly created government removed women from public life by defining them as outside it and under the subjugation of white, male, propertied citizens.
Women's political life always blended
the home and society. Current debates over
biblical rules regarding priests return to the
central role of Mary Magdelene who preached
independently as well as "washing the feet of
Jesus." All during the Revolution women rode
Forest Care: A Femiost Theoi
of Forest Mdngement
though the forests warning groups of militia
lutionary cry as the Declaration of Independence
of the movements of the British soldiers.
- no taxation without representation (Wagner
1987). Nonetheless, women, Blacks, Indians,
and workers were still oppressed in different
Women fought beside the men in the
Revolution. Indeed, George Washington
lamented their absence when coming upon a
group of soldiers who could not manage to
wash and care for their own clothes, but let
them rot on their backs.
Such examples raise the obvious ques-
ways a century after the Revolution. As a result
of continuing work by feminist organizations,
the years around the first Centennial of the
Declaration of Independence became important years for political organizing.
tion of why leave out the contributions of
On the 100th anniversary of the
women in telling the story of the Revolutionary
Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1874, Lillie
Devereux Blake, president of the National
Women Suffrage Association, expressed the
continuing frustration of women from being
War? Why indeed do our history books with
which we seek to educate our children neglect
the story of women? While history books cast
the taming of the west in male, pioneering
terms, the voices of women are frequently
heard as the pioneers who braved the hardships to seek land and a new life. However,
the legal relationships emerging from westward expansion do not build upon women's
lives, but on men's lives. Water law stems from
mining claims. Homesteads were given to
excluded from realizing the liberty and justice
for all citizens - not just men promised by
the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution:
"Our ancestors called the imposition
of taxes without their consent, slavery, and
the denial of personal representation, tyranny. Slavery and tyranny! Words which they
tell us today are too strong for our use. We
must find some mild and ladylike phrases in
males over twenty-one years of age, because
even though the law said "citizen," women did
not share equally in the office of citizen.
which to describe these oppressions. We
During the 19th century feminist
must employ some safe and gentle terms to
groups organized around such obvious injustices, including the right to vote, the injustice
of taxation without equal political voice, and
the necessity of abolishing slavery which treated even children as chattel property to be disposed at the will of the owner. It was the wom-
indicate the crimes which our forefathers
denounced! My friends, what was truth a
en's organizations which pressed President
Lincoln to remain firm in the commitments
became the moment when clear resolve to
bring to full political attention the injustices
of excluding women from political equality
to abolishing slavery which preceded the Civil
War. There were women land owners who
century ago is truth today! Other things may
have changed, but justice has not changed in
a hundred years!" (Wagner 1987:42)
The 1876 Centennial celebration
were either never-married or widowed. All dur-
brought together people of like minds.
"Yet notwithstanding all these wrongs
ing the Nineteenth century women's suffrage
groups organized tax revolts on the same revo-
and usurpations practiced upon woman, all
the unjust laws that rob her of money and
Dr. Mdroret ShdDOn
property, and more, of that inalienable right
to self-government guaranteed to her by God
and nature, we wage no cruel war, no bloody
conflict, but will persistently plead for justice
and right of those who hold in their power
our rights. Though we have waited through
one hundred years of cruel, yes cruel political
servitude we will still wait and watch. The
doors ofjustice refuse us entrance, but still we
Independence during the official ceremonies.
Instead, they staged a silent presentation in
protest, and then, in a fashion recalling the
events a century before, they read aloud the
Declaration on Independence Square in
front of Constitution Hall. Many newspapers
published the entire document the next day,
and it was read and celebrated around the
country during the rest of the summer
(Ibid). Like the 1776 Declaration of
will stand at the threshold and knock, and
knock again. One hundred years is long to
Independence, the women began with the
wait, but if another must be our lot,O
self-evident principle that "men and women"
Centennial women of 1876, be patient, be
are created equal, and thus the tyranny of
firm, be strong, be active. Let us educate the
daughters to hold the fort that we today are
men over women was unjust.
"Taxes are not only imposed upon us
storming. We are making history" (New without our consent, but they are made more
ifl
uIj
Northwest, 4 August 1876).
onerous by masculine extravagance, embezzle-
Around the country women joined
together in separate "celebrations" of the
ments, and a lack of true knowledge of both
political and domestic economy. Men have
spurned our offers of advice and assistance,
Centennial. The New Northwest was a feminist newspaper published in Portland, Oregon
and not only printed the text of the Women's
Declaration, it also predicted the ultimate success of its purposes. Elsewhere in Oregon, the
women in McMinnville "gathered in a grove
and opposed our attempts to assume our
righiful places. They have ridiculed our move-
ment for the establishment of equal rights,
and they have insulted, arrested, and fined
tions in Philadelphia Independence Hall
our leaders. They have multiplied offices, set
swarms of useless officers to devour our substance, and to wax fat and arrogant upon our
industry and frugality. They have equipped
(Wagner 1987:69). In your neighboring state,
soldiers, raised and maintained armies and
then Washington Territory, the women
deemed it "an honor and a privilege that an
opportunity is afforded them of joining with
navies, and made wars, desolating our homes,
shedding much innocent blood in direct violation of our natural instincts and our peace-
their sisters throughout this nation in a
ful desires. ... They have, in fine, declared
protest... against this government allowing
themselves invested with power to legislate for
us in all cases whatsoever... Wherefore, we hereby declare that a government whose character
is thus marked by every act which may define
to hear the Woman's Declaration of
Independence" read at the national celebra-
men to legislate for women in all cases whatsoever" (Wagner 1987:70).
In Philadelphia, the leaders of the
women's movements were denied the opportunity to present the Woman's Declaration of
a despotism is unfit for a republic and a people claiming to be FREE"(Wagner 1987:70).
Forest Care: H Feminist Theor
At the same time, Belva Lockwood, a
prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer, was finally seeing successful passage of a bill to allow
women to practice before the Supreme Court.
She became the first woman to do so, and
continued to press for the right for black male
lawyers to also be admitted to practice before
the high court (Wagner 1987:91). In the same
year as both the Hardrock Mining Act and the
Yellowstone Park Act, Belva Lockwood drafted a
bill requiring equal pay for equal work for federal employees, and it too was passed in 1872.
In 1884, Belva Lockwood and Marietta
Stow accepted the nominations for President
and Vice President by the Equal Rights Party.
The Equal Rights Party stood for full political
participation regardless of color, sex or nationality and for an equal and exact justice for all
(Wagner 1987:92). According to Sally Roesch
Wagner, the press admired Lockwood's campaign. The Washington Evening Star was
noted by Wagner (1987:93) as declaring
"Candidate Lockwood's letter of acceptance is
the best of the lot. It is short, sharp, and decisive. She means what she says and says what
she means. It is evident that Mrs. Lockwood, if
elected, will have a policy; and in many
respects that policy will commend itself to all
people of common sense."
How, then in the context of all this
activism on the part of women and full political rights for women, was such recognition
one hundred and twenty years coming at the
national level? Part of the explanation may lie
in the political role charted for women in the
context of the wild frontier and the shapeless
government which was inventing itself. The
theme of the 19th century for women is their
role as "republican mothers" (Kerber).
of Forest Maemeot
In their vested place as republican
mothers, women were considered the embodiment and the outpost of civilization. Whereas
women had little political identity, it was not
the case that men could always treat them
badly with impunity. Rather, the emerging
social intolerance of wife-beating, rape,
molestation, and alcohol-related abuse reflect-
ed the centrality of the role of women as
guardians of republican virtue. As "republican
mothers" women in frontier communities
held two voices: the voice of private life
home, family, domestic community - and
public responsibility for education, civic
virtue, and the preparation of males for par-
-
ticipation in democratic government. As is frequently found in the writings and speeches of
women at the time or in the histories of their
lives and contributions, this duality of voice is
the locus of tension, a tension constitutive of
the political role of women.
Republican mothers, their duality evident in the concept, bridged the public-private
split. The public lives of women were organized
toward creating a society of justice, freedom,
and security, and their private lives charted new
roles and opportunities for them and for others less on the forefront of social change. Can
one usefully think of forests from the perspective of "republican virtue," and so locate forests
in a dual voice, the voices of commerce and
economic development along with the voice
of community commitment and stability?
LEADERSHIP AND WOMEN
Framing forest management from this
vantage point opens new ways of thinking
about forests, forest policy, and the relationships between forests, communities, society,
Di. Mrd1e Shdnno
and economy. This is the reason for a feminist
theory of forest management. Whereas tradi-
one, and say, "Ah, this is itI've found the
tional forest management concepts were
derived from masculine political concerns
a whole set of relationships. Ecosystems
and emphasized masculine roles in extended
Forms of knowledge and styles of
economies, a feminist forest management
action always go together. For example, men
have typically been very well socialized for
command-control relationships. Whether in
military organizations or in the long history of
administrative roles, basic structures of hierarchical command and control are frequently
might begin in the home and begin with concerns for sustenance, security, and community
economics.
To bring feminist theory from the
19th century to nearly the 21st century, one
place where qualities of women are gaining
particular recognition is in the area of leadership. The perception of a leadership vacuum
or gap today extends through all parts of
American society - from the making of cars
to the management of national forests. New
theories of leadership are "surprisingly" consonant with feminine qualities, and women
often excel when such qualities are the path
to success. Given the centrality of forests to
world environmental problems, perhaps this
perspective is particularly illuminating now.
Frequently, scientists and managers
act as if they have clear, unambiguous, fairly
certain sets of categories. But really there is a
great deal of tension between categories. We
can use the tension between the concepts of
the natural forest and the managed forest as a
pedagogy for learning about natural forests
and managed forests. This use of the tension
between concepts opens our eyes to the
process of definition and clarifies the processes of creating categories, not just examining
given realities as if the examiner had no role
in creating the view. In addition, concepts like
"forest" are emergent qualities of complex sys-
Ecosystem!" No. It's an emergent property of
emerge if a set of relationships is in place.
employed. When the task is to ensure that
lower level soldiers or workers follow directions with unquestioning loyalty, these may be
effective forms of organization. However, if
there is any question as to the definition of
the mission or the task to be completed, these
forms of organization can incorporate questioning only in the form of mutiny or revolt.
Thus, the high price of questioning and
change makes it rare and extremely threatening to all within the organization. "Men used
to operating exclusively in the command-and-
control mode are doomed to failure in the
fast-moving, information-laden, constantly
changing environment of modern business"(Aburdene and Naisbett 1992:94).
When talking about a pedagogy for
learning through exploration of the tension
between different systems of knowledge, one
needs an organizational form which thrives on
questioning, critique and change. Naisbett and
Aburdene draw from empirical studies of
women in leadership roles arid describe a different form of organization and a different set
of skills for management. Contrary to the
tems. So, for example, is the concept of an
hierarchical model, women tend to encourage
participation from all members of an organi-
"ecosystem." You don'tjust draw a line around
zation and at all levels. Women tend to be
Foiest Cie: A Feminist Theor
much more interested in sharing power and
information. They tend to strive to enhance
others' self-worth. In particular, they emphasize
getting others excited about their own work
and contributions.
"Every item on the expert's lists of
leadership qualities
openness, trust,
ongoing education, compassion, understand-
ing - describe the female leadership
style"(Aburdene and Naisbett 1992:89). I
would hope as you think about these words
your response is, "It sounds like Total Quality
Management." It does. That's the point. Whole
organizations have been restructured around
trying to enhance the esteem of the employees.
Since these are characteristics of how we define
leaders and also noted characteristics of
of Forest Mdngement
One of the things Aburdene and
Naisbett discuss in particular, and as Norm
asked originally, is "how things would be different if women were in charge" - say, of the
forests. Women don't say, "Well, how is it different with me in charge?" Women don't say
that because women don't particularly like the
game of king-on-the-mountain. Women don't
particularly like the game of let's-see-if-I-canpush-you-off-today. As educators, it is common
to find whole classes of students getting infuriated when they are put in a competitive situa-
tionit doesn't feel right. They don't want to
compete against each other. There are very
different learning styles, and to categorize
some as "female" is all right as long as we
remember that men as well as women can
women, this says two things: 1) women tend to
practice those things as a matter of their own
set of skills based on their own experience, and
women generally work within networks and
2) women's knowledge was used in creating
locate themselves within webs of relationships;
those characteristics.
networks and webs they constantly work at
nurturing. They're constantly doing emotional work on their webs in conjunction with
their managerial or instrumental work. Thus,
Those are also the characteristics of
civic republicanism, of open public deliberation, of civic forums, of civic virtue. So rather
than separating today's women who are in the
share these styles.
Nonetheless, it seems true that
workworld from those ragtag women who
it is in the concept of webs and in the concept
of the circle that we begin to see how women
walked along with their babies in their arms and
their pots clanking as they followed behind the
locate themselves. Aburdene and Naisbett
observed: "Women leaders like being in the
armiesThere Is No Separation! Both roles
center of things, rather than at the top, which
they perceived as a lonely and disconnected
position. The great thing about the circle is it
does not box you in. You can connect with any
other point" (Aburdene and Naisbett 1992:94).
If we start to fit women's experiences
into the problem of forest management, what
do we begin to find? Aburdene and Naisbett
identif' six characteristics of women's leader-
blend the tension between the public and the
private.
Naisbett and Aburdene found in their
research that women in leadership positions
draw very much from their experiences as
women, from women's ways of doing things, and
from women's ways of knowing. Women in leadership viewed themselves as active agents in the
creation of knowledge and the capacity to act.
ship: empower, restructure, teaching, role
Dr. MrOd1et Srinnoo
model, openness, and questioner. Looking
briefly at these characteristics, it is possible to
not only address what difference it makes to
have women in forest management, but how
different the knowledge and practice of forest
management is when women help make it.
In Megatrends For Women, the authors,
in talking to people, noted the word that most
characterized leadership was the word empowerment. In contrast, words characterizing rnn
agement derived mostly from the commandcontrol and let's-get-the-job-done approach.
Management
Leadership
Empower
Punishment
Demand Respect
Drill Sergeant
Limits and Defines
Imposes Discipline
Here's What We Shall Do!
Bottom Line
R
BRestructure
Control
Rank
Hierarchy
Reward
Invites Speaking Out
Motivator
Empowers
Values Creativity
How Can I Serve You?
Vision
Rigid
Automatic Annual Raises
Performance Review
Mechanistic
Change
Connection
Network
Flexible
Pay For Performance
Mutual Contract for Results
Wholistic
Compartmental
Systemic
Teaching
Order-giving
Military Archetype
Facilitating
Teaching Archetype
Role Model
Issues Orders
Acts as a Role Model
Openness
Keeping People on Their Toes
Reach Up/Down
Information Control
Nourishing Environment for Growth
Reach Out
Information Availability
flu est loner
Knows All the Answers
(Taken from Aburdene and Naisbett 1992)
Asks the Right Questions
HI4IItILIIII11NIIRIIILItIflJIIIICIIIiHII11IHHLII11
The most useful aspect of these contrasting clusters of characteristics is the creative tension between them. Networks are new
ways to relate holistic, systemic concerns.
Leaders characterizing themselves as teachers.
Teachers and guides as role models. One
begins to see different archetypes, different
the commercial value of wood products to
pornography. The reason pornography is rep-
rehensible to feminist legal scholars like
Catherine MacKinnon, (to name only the
most well-known individual) is that the sexual
availability of a woman is abstracted from the
female person and the commercial value of it
is viewed as an adequate measure of her
ways in which people act and learn how to act.
A sense of openness rather than secrecy; shar-
worth. To treat the forest as if its value could
ing rather than hoarding information as
he adequately measured by simply the
power. When experiences from many aspects
of life are brought together, not only is knowledge more accessible, but there is greater likelihood of getting people involved in talking.
exchange value of its large or specially useful
trees is to commit the same fallacy.
Public life in the United States is usual-
CONCLUSIONS
The bottom line is that we must
maintain a creative tension between universal and particular
between natural and managed forests, between experience
in the home and in public, between industri-
al economies and local economies. It is
through the maintenance of this creative tension between experiential and abstract knowing that we can find knowledge that will be
useful to understanding forests
their voice
as managed forests and their voice as natural
forests. We need to be inclusionary and to be
ly understood as independent of the place
where it occurs, and thus a universal and
abstract experience. But all politicians know
that "politics is local." The challenge of bringing together the forms of knowledge offered by
both the modern scientific perspective and the
ancient ways of people and places is not a distant challenge in everyday life. It is the halls of
academia where these forms of knowledge are
in conflict. When we fully welcome women's
ways of knowing and women's knowledge into
the classroom and into our textbooks, then the
creative potentials may be realized.
Such lessons are also true in the
political realm, for a people's character, as
very careful when we see words and ideas
well as their knowledge, is formed by where
claimed to have the imprimatur of neutrality,
objectivity, and based upon universal cate-
they live and how they are shaped by that
gories. We need to ask, "Whose neutrality,
with you the preamble to the Constitution of
the state of Montana: "We the people... thankful for the grace of God, for the grandeur of
our mountains and spaciousness of our plains,
we do so duly constitute ourselves into a citizenry." Let us follow this same path in our
objectivity, or universal category'?"
One graphic way to illustrate the
importance of not accepting a partial and
abstracted measure of value - and especially
of not assuming that it represents an objective, neutral, and universal quality, is to compare the value of the forest as based solely on
place. And so, as a final comment, let me share
shared interest in the care and nurturing of
our forests and our citizens.
Di. Mdlglet Snon
forces are shaping the problems that seem so
REFERENCES
obvious and local, and broaden our underAnderson, Lorraine (Editor). 1991.
Sisters
the Earth: Women 's Prose and Poetry
A bout Nature. New York: Vintage Books.
of
Baker, P 1984. The Domestication
of
Politics: Women and American Political Society,
1780-1920. The American Historical Review
89 (3) :620-47.
Kerber, Linda. 1980. Women
the
Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary
of
America. New York: W.W. Norton and
Company.
Perlin, John. 1989. A Forest Journey:
The Role of Wood in the Development of
standing of those problems. That knowledge, I
think, is available. It is just not used. We'll see.
Q: In looking at the chart where you
compared the leadership and management
qualities, at one point you said attributes such
as sharing, trusting, and being compassionate
were associated with more feminine-type peo-
ple. I think of those as attributes of the low
person on the totem pole, as many women in
our society still are in terms of economic and
other parameters. What do you think will happen if we ever get to a more egalitarian society? Will we still value trust and compassion
Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.
Ponting, Clive. 1991. A Green History
of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of
Great Civilizations. New York: Penguin Books.
and sharing, or do you think that will be
Wagner, Sally Roesch. 1987. A Time
that's one of the major areas in which there is
a lot of feminist work going on. The studies of
Of Protest: Suffragists Challenge The Republic:
1870-1887. Sacramento, California: Spectrum
Publications.
WE HAVE TIME FOR A FEW BRIEF QUESTIONS
AND I'LL TRY To CATCH You IN THE ORDER As
replaced by something else?
A: It's a very astute question, and I
don't have a good answer other than to say
CEOs are looking at women who are no
longer so much in an oppressed state. Do they
act differently? What qualities do they have?
Q: Are you thinking about trying to put
The work I'm familiar with tends to
show that women still maintain the whole set
of family commitments. CEO or not, somebody's got to be home. Somebody's got to
some of these ideas into effect on the forestry
make sure the food's there. If you have
resource issues in the state of Washington?
infants, somebody has to be there. Most of
those kinds of work around home issues and
You RAISE YOUR HAND:
A: Well, that is a fair question. I don't
have a good answer for it. But yes. I look at
things like the promised summit; it's going to
happen. And unfortunately I think it'll happen
around the dynamics of marketplace politics.
And that will go nowhere. I would like to see a
democratic forum model where there is an
effort at real learning, and to bring analysis into
the discussion process, and to figure out how
around family seem to stay on women's watch
for the most part. There are many instances,
of course, of sharing that kind of work. But in
the aggregate we find that women do it all.
Q: It seems that we often get stuck in
terms of how different values are in opposition; rather than seeing differences as complimentary and having dialogue, it still comes
Forest Care: A Feminist Thea r
of Forest Mdnement
out as competition and opposition. How do
Q: I had two things I wanted to talk
we get beyond that in getting to conversation?
about. One was you mentioned a little bit about
A: I think that the first part is to do
what you just did. It's to say that. It's to find
your own history coming up through, your
ways that are somehow compatible. There are
times, of course, that choices are not compati-
ble. And that's one of the very valuable
aspects of the science of economics, for
career, and at that time forestry and forest management, forest policy was a male-dominated
world. How did you incorporate some of your
own feminine feelings and beliefs and maintain
your own identity while playing the game you
example, because it helps to show us when
choices are incompatible. So do other kinds
of science. But they can't make the decision
felt you had to play? And the second point is
three previous Starker Lectures that we have
for us. So we need to have a great deal of discussion. The other part of the question is, in
what forum do we have those discussions? If
they showed me other people's biases, their
thoughts and their beliefs. I wanted to thank
the organizers for introducing them. Along
we have it in a forum where we don't take
with your talk, they have been very good in get-
your experience seriously as compared to my
ting us to realize that other people have reaSons for their beliefs and their knowledge.
And we have to recognize that before we can
experience, then it is much harder to make
decisions.
heard here, to me were very interesting because
Q: We here in Oregon have heard
language very similar to the talk you've
given from our governor and her chief of
begin any kind of dialogue.
A: How did I survive? Well, actually
staff. How would you comment on Barbara
Roberts'"Conversation with Oregon?"
tion. It was vely, very hard. It is still very, very
there is sort of a serious answer to that ques-
A: I think it was a really amazing
hard. This is still a male-dominated profession. But it has changed dramatically in the
process. The analyses that I have heard of why
it didn't work, seemed to be the things we can
last few years. Actually the reason I was able to
survive is that I could always call upon a histo-
learn from. It's not likely we are going to
ry of mother, grandmothers, aunts, great-
somehow transform the way political business
is done overnight, get rid of entrenched vested interests. So what can we learn? It doesn't
have to succeed every time for it to be a wor-
grandmothers, who had played a public role.
My grandmother, who was a doctor, practiced
in World War I, and she married my grandfa-
thy activity.
There needs to be a real tension
between the participatory side and the efficacy side. Sometimes you just have to act and
make a decision. But once you've added the
creative tension, maybe that leads us toward
ther who was a missionary in Montana and she
lived through hellacious times. My question to
her as a college kid was, "Grandmother, why
when you got married didn't you say
Reverend and Doctor ShannonI mean, at
least that!" Her response to me was,
a better pedagogy of public policy than we
"Granddaughter, that's the generation abyss."
That was a perspective that was hard for her to
would have otherwise.
have. My pediatrician in Buffalo had gone
Dr. MdrOdret ShDOD
through Harvard Medical School in the
Fifties. She couldn't understand why I kept
"my name," because she is married to a surgeon and she didn't. And I just had to look at
her and say, "You know, if you don't understand, I can't really explain it to you." For
many women in this society, there isn't a
model that they can look back to. I feel like I
was in a privileged position in that all of my
great-grandparents were college educated.
How many people in this country can say that?
Not very many. My grandmothers worked. My
grandmother that was my mother's mother
supported her two children and demanded a
man's wage for her work. Her father told her,
"You'll never get a man's wage. They'll never
give it to you." And in the Thirties, they didto
be a school teacher. She said, "I do a man's job,
I need the same wage. I am an earner." There
were times when I was denied jobs for no other
reason than I was a female. And when I was at
Berkeley no women had ever received PhDs out
of the Berkeley School of Forestry. And they
really didn't think you could do it. They had no
vision of finishing. That becomes very disruptive
to one's sense of identity.
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